Ball and Chain
by Teanni
Summary: "Do I get me match now?" Stephanie held up her index finger admonishingly. "I'll tell you in a second, Sheamus." Again with the dramatic pauses. She seemed to be a huge fan of those. "This is not about a match. I called you out here tonight to make an important announcement... You're going to be AJ's partner from now on." "What!" AJ and Sheamus asked simultaneously.
1. Ball and Chain

**Disclaimer: This is a non profit fanfiction. I do not own anything associated with the trademark WWE and am purely writing this fic out of fan-appreciation and respect for the hard work all those people put into giving us a great show each week. In other words: Please don't sue! **

**Author's note:** _Just a quick heads-up before we get started. You're going to meet both AJ Lee and April Mendez in this story respectively (Same goes for Sheamus and Stephen). I'm trying to make the distinction as clear as possible, but I thought it would be a clever move to point this out before we got started. _

_As always my thanks go to my amazing beta, UntilNeverDawns. _

_Let's get this show on the road, guys. Have fun and please show your appreciation by making the sound 'woot woot woot' and hitting the review button! Actually, I'd rather you just hit that button..._ ;-)

* * *

She grabbed the microphone tightly in her hands and strode out on stage. For a second she had to blink against the headlights from above, but she was a pro and quickly adjusted to the blinding lights directed on her face. Just as quickly she got over the fact that not everyone in the house was pleased to see her when he entrance music hit. In fact she was greeted by boos and cheers alike.

AJ gave them a second to take in her presence, just like those heavily breathing scarcely clad ladies that qualified as her fellow divas. Brie Bella and Naomi, who had just competed in a match and those other ones like Cameron, the other half of the Funkadactyls and Brie's sister Nikki, who were also huffy, but solely out of fake indignation. A grin spread on AJ's face. Both, as her wrestler alter ego and the person behind the character, she relished those kind of moments.

She raised the microphone to her lips with a feeling of anticipation and glee. "Sorry to interrupt you, ladies, but I was trying to keep the worst from happening. And the worst, believe me, isn't that you actually do something harmful to each other, because what you're doing can hardly be called wrestling. It's parading around in skimpy outfits," at that she threw back her black hair over her shoulder and grinned. "No, the worst that can happen to YOU out here is a broken nail or maybe split ends..." She inspected her own nails casually, waiting for the audience's reaction and that of those girls in the ring. She didn't have to wait long.

Cheers and boos from the audience and a rather uncreative mixture of insults being shouted in her direction from the ring. Pity, they didn't have a microphone like her, screeching women were truly something unattractive. Still in character, she took a deep breath and prepared to launch a new verbal assault at the other women.

"Why so upset?" she twisted a lock of her hair around her index finger and cocked her head to the side. "Did I hit a nerve there?" she laid a special emphasize on the word 'nerve', stretching its vowel like it was chewing gum. "I'm just trying to help. The sooner you realize that you have no place in this company the better. This is wrestling, not _Sports Illustrated_ magazine. Actually...," she put her index finger against her chin pensively, "you might wanna lose a few pounds for _Sports Illustrated_, Nikki. Inaction doesn't become you..."

The screeches in the ring got louder. They were interrupted and ultimately drowned out by Stephanie McMahon's entrance music. AJ whipped around. The lunatic smile disappeared from her face and made room for a serious, somewhat guarded expression. The boss lady strode in and ripped the microphone from her hands unceremoniously.

"That's enough out of you, AJ," she hissed and the ladies down in the ring gloated. Some people in the audience, probably not AJ's fan club cheered. "Haven't I told you that I expect better out of you? You're the Diva's Champion. You're supposed to be a role model to little girls out there and here you go belittling and ridiculing the other women in the Diva's division every chance you get..." Stephanie paused here, allowing her words to sink in. She finally shook her head regretfully and with a hint of disgust. She really was a class act.

"I've made a decision, AJ. I can no longer stand by and watch you go on like this. I sincerely hope that my decision will help you get your temper under control and teach you some humility..." The audience and everybody else present held their breaths collectively. The pause continued. For a moment the huge sports arena was absolutely quiet. You could have heard a pin drop.

"It's a shameful thing, lost your head...," Sheamus' entrance music hit. He had been out due to an injury for months now and the crowd went wild when he first ran out on stage again, bellowing and hitting his chest. He had a maniacal glint in his eyes that could not have been entirely acting, because it looked pretty real thanks to the genuine enthusiasm he felt being back.

AJ looked around confused, as did Sheamus when he stepped next to Stephanie. In fact he was frowning when he brought his own microphone to his mouth. "You called and I came. Not that I'm not glad to be out here, lass," cue cheers from the audience, "but I've been medically cleared and itching for a match against one of those fellas back there tonight, so what's all this stuff about? Do I get me match now?"

Stephanie held up her index finger admonishingly. "I'll tell you in a second, Sheamus." Again with the dramatic pauses. She seemed to be a huge fan of those. "This is not about a match. I called you out here tonight to make an important announcement... You're going to be AJ's partner from now on."

"What?!" AJ and Sheamus asked simultaneously.

Their harshly worded protest was drowned out by the audience going absolutely crazy over that news, so all that could be seen on those huge monitors above everyone's heads was AJ and Sheamus gesticulating wildly and shouting at Stephanie who seemed to be completely unfazed by the collective onslaught of both their tempers. That in itself was quite a feat because Sheamus was towering several inches over her and royally pissed off and AJ was screaming bloody murder at her. But then again, in a situation like that it wasn't size that mattered or how loud you could raise your voice. No, it was authority, and being the boss' daughter, she had a whole lot of authority going for her.

Stephanie held up her hand calmly. The two enraged individuals in front of her continued raging and raving, but ultimately it was no use. Eventually they fell quiet in the face of Stephanie's poise that somehow bore a striking resemblance to one of those Greek statues, usually made to honour some goddess.

"There will be no arguing about this. It's final. You're going to be ringside during each other's matches and support each other." More protest, which Stephanie simply ignored shaking her head once. "See it as a challenge," she gave each of her two disgruntled employees a pointed look, "either you rip each other's throats out or you'll become best of friends. It's completely up to you." After having gazed sternly at both at AJ and Sheamus, daring them to go against her orders, she gave them one final nod and departed.

Sheanus had raised his hands, doubtlessly to argue the point that Stephanie's decision was nonsensical, but in the face of her speedy departure, he let them sink down again. He turned and stared at AJ instead - his new charge. The sized each other up for a few seconds like predators meeting in a forest clearing. The Irishman just stared blankly at AJ face, whereas the petite woman cocked her head to the side and looked up at the larger man with an unreadable expression on her face. Eventually Sheamus let out a sound of disgust. He decided he had had enough and stormed off. Shortly after, AJ followed behind but not without rolling her eyes. After all, the idea of being stuck with that Irishman didn't agree with her, but losing her job over disobeying Stephanie's orders wasn't an option either.

The camera followed her backstage. At the end of the corridor she could see Sheamus' quite massive retreating back. Her guess was that he was on the way to his locker room. She set into motion and started skipping down the corridor, the soles of her knee-high Converse screeching obnoxiously on the shining linoleum floor, which probably alerted the Celtic Warrior to her presence and only made him walk faster. "Hey, no fair!" she called out. "Wait!" And to her surprise he stopped. She saw his back quiver briefly as he was taking one long calming breath and balling his hands into fists at his sides.

When she was about one step away from him, he whipped around, his skin flushed with anger and his face set in an unattractive scowl. "Fecking stop following me, lass!" His voice was booming and created an unpleasant ringing in her ears, but she didn't flinch back, even when he continued to yell at her and his nose was as good as touching hers. "Just so we're clear about this, I'm not your mate, I'm not one of your bleedin' boy toys! As long as neither of us has a match you stay the feck away from me!" Those words were not spoken, they were practically screamed in her face. In a cartoon, his head would have been beet-red and his breath would have blown back her hair. Now there was only that funny little vein pulsing in his left temple. AJ stared at it with something akin to morbid fascination.

Finally she smiled up at him sweetly. Her smiles were not like those of other people. They were not harmless and sweet, at least not when she was in character. They were malicious and quite a bit crazed. She was smiling because the angry Irishman was scary, but nothing she couldn't handle.

"OK," she said simply and shrugged, which was sort of anticlimactic, considering all the yelling he had been doing previously. "No need to get grumpy. I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're back."

He gave her a stunned look, actually taking a step back, forgetting some of his anger for the time being. "You're glad I'm back?! Haven't you understood anything I just said?!"

She just beamed up at his confused face, ignoring his questions. With her free hand she caressed the championship belt over her shoulder, trying to draw confidence and calmness from the gesture. He just stared at her, asking himself whether this petite girl standing in front of him was completely nuts. Right now it sure looked like it.

"See you around," she finally said before she turned on her heels and left a speechless Sheamus standing there with a puzzled expression on his face.

"And we're off!" the cameraman exclaimed finally and lowered the lens away from Stephen's face. The puzzled expression on his face was replaced by a smile. It was one of those professional ones that didn't quite reach the eyes and destined for April who now stepped next to him again.

"Good job," he told her politely, though with some reserve. They had known each other for roughly four years, but had rarely worked together. They were acquaintances, had shared the occasional conversation during the odd bus or plane ride, but there was nothing deeper that connected them. No friendship, just superficial politeness and now he was forced to work with her, which wouldn't have been a much of a problem under normal circumstances. Now, however, he saw it as a problem, because he had just been back from months of inaction and was bursting with energy that needed to be unleashed during a proper fight and not wasted by pairing him off with that wee little lass.

Talking about the Diva's Champion, his attention was called back to April who was smiling up at him. Their height difference was almost comical, she was 5ft 2 and he was towering over her with his impressive 6ft 4. "Thanks, Steve. Same to you."

Her smile was sort of guarded. She didn't know what to think about that man standing in front of her. It wasn't that she thought he didn't like her. In fact he was always polite to her, the perfect gentleman. Unlike his in ring persona he knew how to behave, but he was always so reserved with her. Take this situation right now for example. She had no idea what he thought about being paired off with her.

A couple of days ago, at the business meeting at headquarters, he had just taken the information that they would be partners for an indefinite period of time with a solemn nod of his head. The fact that he had been very tight-lipped afterwards had her thinking that he didn't approve. Personally she had no problem working with him. She just didn't like the idea of another romance angle for her character. Seriously? First Cody Rhodes (if you could count that stupid sexist kissing contest), then Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, Dolph Ziggler and now Sheamus?! She was the Black Widow, but no nymphomaniac. She could shine on her own. She didn't need a male lead starring in the AJ Lee show.

"Soooo...," with that little world he brought her back to the present and made her blink up at him with a slightly dazed expression on her face. Her eyes were burning. She needed to get those damned contact lenses out after the show. "Guess, I see you later for Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler. Just make sure you're standing in the right corner," he joked good-naturedly, but sort of lamely.

April was tempted to roll her eyes, but didn't out of strategic reasons and the obvious fact that it just wasn't polite. "Sure, that would be the side of the ring where I can best reach Nick's ankles, right?" she grinned.

"Dead on," Steve grinned and turned around to mercifully end their little awkward exchange. At least it felt awkward to her. She didn't know what to say to him, much less know how to behave around him. Maybe that was because she hardly knew him. If his friends were to be believed, he was funny and a "good sort of fella", which she was yet to find out. After all she could hardly claim to know him on a more personal level. For a lack of a better term you could say they were acquaintances or colleagues. What they knew about each other stemmed from a collection of short meetings, of irrelevant conversations, so that wasn't much.

* * *

Sheamus' entrance music hit and they walked out on stage. Well, Sheamus didn't walk, he burst out on stage. AJ skipped after him and reached his side right after he had beaten his chest and emitted some sort of primal battle cry. His eyes fell on her and were filled with disapproval. AJ clasped her hands behind her back and swayed slightly to the left and right. Her behaviour was oddly reminiscent of a child wearing a new sun dress wanting to charm an adult into giving her something she wanted. Sheamus, however, didn't find her the least bit charming, only irritating and confusing. He shook his head in disgust and headed down the ramp towards the ring. AJ followed in her usual fashion, skipping after him, ruining what would have been a perfect entrance and a triumphal comeback.

He didn't hold the ring ropes open for her, but she didn't need him to. She climbed through them displaying a considerable amount of athleticism and flexibility. They both looked expectantly at the ramp and they were not disappointed, because soon Dolph Ziggler burst out on stage. He did his usual routine, posing and for the lack of a better word, showing off, before he headed in their direction with a determined expression on his face.

AJ patted her championship belt to draw some semblance of strength and reassurance from it. Only a couple of weeks ago she would have been right behind Dolph, accompanying him to the ring for support. But he had broken up with her. On live TV. And now she was here with another man. Her eyes settled on Sheamus and she threw him a creepy grin. Just like she had patted her trophy before she patted his arm and said: "You show him!"

Sheamus wanted to pull her hand away from his arm, her touch was irritating him, just like her whole presence in general, but she had already climbed out of the ring. He let out his breath in relief.

The referee soon started the match. Both wrestlers clashed in the middle of the ring, trying to determine who of them was stronger. Sheamus eventually pushed Dolph back into his corner of the ring and AJ giggled in delight. She watched on from outside the ring with her forearms on the mat and a crazed smile on her lips as the two men battled each other inside the ring.

Each brutal clothesline Sheamus delivered to Dolph made her chuckle like she had just heard a good joke. Each hit the blonde took contributed to her good mood. But eventually the tight turned and Sheamus who was the stronger, but slower between the two opponents took some punishment.

He was running at Dolph like a charging bull, but the blonde got out of the way in the last second and sent Sheamus flying over the top rope. The Irishman tried to climb back in, but was hit by a kick and stumbled back into the barricade. For a couple of seconds he hung limply from it and shook his head to get rid of the feeling of dizziness and pain the kick had created.

Eventually he got back on his feet only to be grabbed by Ziggler and slammed into the steel steps of the ring- head first. Sheamus landed on the floor writhing in pain. That's when AJ decided to check up on him and make sure Dolph wouldn't be able to capitalize on the situation. To him, she was still a walking, talking distraction whenever and wherever she appeared. And in fact Ziggler was, for a moment, so mesmerized by her presence that he forgot all about Sheamus, which bought the Irishman enough time to get back on his feet.

Instead of a "thanks", Sheamus threw her a look of disapproval when he grabbed Ziggler and jerked him into the direction of the ring. AJ had a hard time understanding how he could be so ungrateful, but she watched with great pleasure and approval as her former on-screen "boyfriend" was brutally shoved around by the angry redhead.

The fight spilled back into the ring. She remembered most of Dolph's matches very well; after all she had been ringside for a lot of them. AJ was all too familiar with his style. It was elegant and flamboyant. Sheamus' was very physical and a combination of brute force and technique. He was like a one man wrecking crew. Sweaty, sort of primal and barbaric, which left her oddly fascinated.

Currently Sheamus was working on wearing Dolph down, he had tried for a three-count numerous times now, but it seemed like there was no quit in Ziggler. After another pinfall that was interrupted by Dolph kicking out at two and a half Sheamus grew frustrated and started yelling at the referee. The blonde man got up on the meantime and stumbled back into the ropes. It seemed like he was barely able to stand on his own.

AJ saw her opening and capitalized on it. While the referee had his hands full with Sheamus, she grabbed Ziggler's ankles and pulled, which resulted in him landing on the mat face first. For some reason Sheamus, even though he had been involved in a fully-fledged shout-out, had seen her pull her nasty little trick on Dolph. He breezed in her direction, leaving a stunned referee behind. For a second she actually believed he would go for the cover, because he briefly stopped at the fallen man's side, but then he directed his blue eyes at her. They were cold as ice. She retreated a bit and her back hit the barricade when he jumped out of the ring and advanced on her. In the background the referee was starting to count while Ziggler started to stir. Not an ideal scenario.

"What have you done?!" he thundered and she backed even further into the barricade. The fans behind her were clapping her shoulders in support, but someone was pulling at her hair too. She took a step to the right to get away from Sheamus, but also from the hair pulling freak.

"I wanted to help you win," she tried to reason with him. He didn't look like he wanted to be reasoned with, however. He looked livid.

"That's not how I win. I'm a warrior. Warrior's don't cheat! You better get that into your feckin' noggin and be quick about it!" There went that vein in his forehead again.

"But...," she started, holding up her index finger.

He just glared at her and finally let out a loud, frustrated scream "Aaaaaaaaaah!" that had her and the fans behind her do a little jump in surprise. And as if on cue the referee announced: "The winner as a result of a count-out: Dolph Ziggler."

Sheamus whipped around. Dolph was looking down on them. He was swaying on his feet, but grinning. If even possible that incensed the Irishman even further. He got into AJ's face again, and that quite literally. Her body was pressed into the barricade by Sheamus' much larger and sweaty one. "You better watch it from now on, lass!" he growled and stormed off.

AJ took a stumbling step away from the barricade and adjusted her belt over her shoulder, displaying a hint of vulnerability and uneasiness with the gesture. Wow, that hadn't gone well!

* * *

Sheamus ripped open the door to Stephanie's office in the backstage area of the arena so forcefully it banged into the wall behind it. That fairly undiplomatic move got him the boss lady's attention immediately. So it was mostly unwanted attention.

"How dare you...," she started, her eyes narrowed in disapproval. The expression on her face could have sent little children running back to her mother's. It left the Celtic Warrior completely unimpressed, however.

"How dare I?!" he boomed. "You get that little witch away from me now! Or I'll snap her little neck like a twig next time she interferes with one of me matches." It was not the fact that the substitution of the letter 'w' in 'witch' by another one that appeared much earlier in the alphabet was heavily implied that enraged Stephanie, but it was much rather the comment about "snapping AJ's neck" that ventured dangerously into non PG-friendly territory.

"Shut up!" she told Sheamus simply. Her tone was icy and threatening.

"You might be my boss, but you're decision is shite," the Irishman screamed at her, unheeding of her threats or the silent warning the forbidding expression in her eyes issued.

Now Stephanie's voice lowered disproportionately to Sheamus'. It assumed an eerie, very low quality, a bit like the hiss of a snake. "Be glad that you get the chance to be back after months of inaction. Be glad that I gave you that girl at your side, because she makes your story more interesting. Be glad she gets under your skin like that because finally... after months of having to put up the cuddly Irishman next door we get to see the Celtic Warrior again. If that's what she brings out of you, you better shut up and be thankful!"

Sheamus didn't have much to say in the face of those words, Stephanie had a point, after all. His hands balled to fists at his sides, his nostrils quivered. Oh, how he would have loved to smash something into little pieces now or give someone a good thrashing. But that was not an option right now, so he tried to quench the anger within himself.

"Why are you still standing here? Get out of here and get your sorry ass down to the ring. Your partner is having a match right now!" Stephanie ordered him.

Sheamus begrudgingly set into motion. He could still feel a residual trace of that anger burning inside of him. It was still there, but he buried in order to function. He had to function if he wanted to keep his job and right now that entailed being stuck with that pesky little raven-haired lass.

A brief glance in passing-by one of those monitors told him that AJ was already down at ringside. She was getting ready to face Natalya for a non-title-shot match. He hurried down the ramp, forgoing his usual routine of posing on top of the ramp and positioned himself in her corner of the ring.

AJ threw him a questioning glance. She seemed surprised to see him. Truth be told, even he was surprised to be there. Better late than never, he reckoned. They were seconds away from the match. Her championship belt was still hanging over her shoulder. He pointed at it and made a motion with his hand, asking her to hand it to him, so he could keep it safe during the match. She actually physically recoiled. No way in hell was he going to even touch that belt, even if it was just for safe-keeping during her match. After one last pointed stare at Sheamus, she handed the belt over to the referee.

Sheamus acquitted that decision with a casual shrug of his shoulders as if he wanted to say "Fine, have it your way." Soon enough the fight started. It was dominated early on by Natalya who outmatched AJ in strength, but not in terms of technique and agility.

Sheamus stood by at ringside and observed the match between the two women with a stony face. The boss-lady had told him to suck it up, but that didn't mean he couldn't get back on AJ for what she had done to him. She had made him walk out of his first match back with the WWE a loser. Unforgivable! She would pay for that. A devilish smirk spread on his face and he started stroking his beard pensively, already concocting a revenge plan.

In the meantime Natalya had gained the upper hand. She went for the sharpshooter, making AJ look like a human pretzel as she mercilessly bent her legs back in a vise-like grip. He got up on the apron and did what was expected of him as AJ's partner. He was supposed to distract her opponent and distract her he did. He started yelling at Natalya. "Oiii, lass, you want someone to play human pretzel with? Why don't ya try me?" he wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

A look of disgust flashed over Natalya's features briefly. He hadn't distracted her with his crude comment, if anything his insinuation only contributed to her growing more determined. He grinned as she applied a bit more force to the hold and made AJ cry out in pain. That was the way to go. That pesky little lass would soon know better than to mess with the Celtic Warrior again.

He climbed through the robes with a smirk on his face, his body language far from aggressive as he once again admonished Natalya to get away from his partner. "Now, Nattie, that's a bit mean, don't you think? The lass is all cryin' out in pain. Doesn't look like she likes what you're doin' to her, so me thinks it's time you stepped away and left the poor thing alone."

Quite predictable once he stepped foot in the ring, the referee was instantly in his face yelling at him about having to leave the ring because this was a woman's match. He even got his knickers in such a twist that he started a count-out, which Sheamus ignored with a grin on his face. He was just here to morally support his partner, who was by the way still locked in that sharpshooter. Hmmm, that looked sort of painful! Such a pity! His eyes twinkled gleefully, especially when the following announcement was made.

"And the winner, as a result of a disqualification: Natalya." The referee was instantly at Natalya's side and held up her arm in victory, whereas AJ simply rolled on her back and stared up at the ceiling of the arena in disbelief. Sheamus' smirking visage eventually invaded her field of vision and her hands curled to fists at her sides. She hit them on the mat angrily and got up.

Without any warning whatsoever she attacked Sheamus in a blind rage. She jumped on his back and tried to apply the Black Widow on him. Heavy emphasis on tried. Because of him being that much stronger, she was naturally in no position to bend back his arm, but unwittingly got herself in the perfect position for one of Sheamus' finishers: the White Noise.

"I could squish you right now, little lass," he told her, holding on tightly to her leg and her arm to bring his point across.

"I could scratch out your eyes," she hissed into his ears, loud enough for the microphone to pick up her voice. True to her words her fingers sailed past his face dangerously close.

He merely adjusted his hold on her. They had reached a stand-off. He turned his head to stare at her and she stared right back, coldly, unblinkingly, like a robot. But there was something in those eyes as well, something he registered on a deeper level than just his in ring persona. It spoke to the more private part of him that he reserved for the moments backstage of the show and went by the name Stephen Farrelly. He saw a certain loneliness and sadness in April's eyes. He almost would have let her drop upon that realisation, but he was professional enough not to and quickly found his way back into his role.

Neither of them was willing to back down. Her stubbornness rivalled his own and it amused him. He threw back his head and laughed, a reaction which completely threw the audience and AJ for a loop.

He placed her down on the ground, still laughing at the whole ridiculousness of the situation. They had been standing there in the middle of the ring with her sticking to his back like a overgrown tick for the last couple of minutes after all. If that wasn't hilarious, he didn't know what was. He wiped the tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand, while AJ was watching him with a bemused facial expression that eventually turned into a knowing grin.

If the last couple of hours had shown anything, than it was probably this: the huge Irishman was anything but indifferent to her. She had already managed to get under his skin, which was a good thing.

"Peace?" she held out her hand to him in yet another attempt at manipulating him.

He watched it for a second with air of someone watching a huge spider crawl up your leg: with a mixture of odd fascination and repulsion.

"Wipe that creepy smile of yer face, lass," he told her, still hesitating to take her hand. "I won't be shaking that hand unless ya promise te never cost me a clean win again."

AJ's face fell and her smile was replaced by a calculating look. "Fine," she agreed, "if that's what it's going to take to keep you from sabotaging my matches again..."

"Fine." And with that they finally shook hands and formed a tentative and very shaky first alliance.


	2. Harley Quinn and Bane

**Author's note**: _Wow, thank you for all those kind words! Special thanks to cookies, SparkenRose and of course my beta UntilNeverDawns!_

* * *

She had been internally debating with herself for the last half an hour whether to do it or not. Unfortunately her best friend Celeste, aka Kaitlyn, wasn't here or else she could have asked her for her opinion. Would she end up coming on too strong if she casually asked him to get something to eat with her after the show? But if she didn't, how else should she get to know him better?

Determined to not let herself spiral into another one of those internal debates with herself, she straightened her back and rapped at the door in front of her. It was shortly after opened by Stephen Farrelly, now dressed in civilian clothes just like her. He wore one of his trademark flat caps, a shirt with rolled up sleeves, with a vest and as her eyes wandered lower, she noticed his rather fashionably faded jeans.

"Hi!" she smiled at him, tugging a strain of hair behind her ear, feeling somewhat self-conscious, though his facial expression didn't give her any reason to. There was a friendly smile on his face, so she successfully fought down the temptation of tugging at the hem of her tight fitting Batman T-shirt and only looked down at the tips of her black Converse briefly to gather some courage.

"I was wondering whether you wanted to head out with me and grab something to eat. That is if you haven't got other plans. I mean, we haven't talked to each other properly ever since that promo tour to Abu Dhabi back in...," she narrowed her eyes, trying to remember the date, "When was that again? August? June? Wasn't it cool though? Do you remember..." There her voice trailed off. She had already said too much anyway. She didn't want to start rambling just because she felt embarrassed. The situation was awkward enough as it was.

"It was in July," he supplied finally and she smiled, not feeling like a complete loser for once.

"Yeah, sure. July. That's it."

"I remember, because it was right before I had surgery in August." Upon hearing that, her smile fell. "And I sat around on me arse for four months after that."

"Oh," she said sort of sheepishly and lowered her eyes, "I hope it didn't hurt too much. I mean not sitting on your ass obviously...the surgery and stuff. Erm... I mean, I'm sorry to hear that recovery was tough on you."

He actually had to smile at her behaviour. At present she was standing in front of him with her eyes downcast, probably feeling embarrassed for having inadvertently managed to bring up the topic of his injury. It struck him how different April was from the character she portrayed in the ring. AJ was like her evil twin, whereas April Jeanette Mendez was a sweet girl really, not crazy, but maybe a bit awkward and dorky.

"Well, I'm not gonna piss and moan. I've done that the last couple of months...," he rubbed the back of his neck. "You know what? I'm actually feeling a bit peckish, so I think I could go for a bite."

"Yeah?" she looked up at him with a smile. "That's cool. I'm going to grab my stuff from the locker room and meet you outside in five?" she suggested, already starting to move away from the door.

"All right," he agreed.

And so he found himself waiting for April about five minutes later at the back of the building. When she stepped outside, through on of those nondescript back door exits, he immediately noticed that she had put on her glasses and tied back her hair in a ponytail, which gave her an odd secretary kind of vibe. The air of strictness her hairdo and the glasses created was contradicted by the geeky T-shirt she wore and the rest of her clothes in general. Ripped jeans and Converse. To top off the look she wore a leather jacket.

"There you are," he greeted her.

"Here I am," she said and rocked back and forth once on her feet after she had come to stand in front of him.

"So where to?"

"I've got a cheat-day today," she told him with a proud grin. "I was thinking some fast-food place if that's all right with you?"

"We might as well," he shrugged his shoulders and she resigned herself to the fact that that was probably as much enthusiasm as she was going to get out of him.

"Where to?" he asked.

She got out her cell phone and typed something. After a few seconds she raised her head and smiled at him triumphantly. "Wendy's this way," she indicated the street behind him. "Seven Eleven's this way," she pointed behind herself.

"Wendy's and Seven Eleven," he replied, wrinkling his nose. Making this choice was something along the lines of out of the frying pan into the fire.

"Not much for fast food?" she looked at him, interpreting his facial expression correctly as one of displeasure.

"Why don't we get into my rental and drive around for a bit until we hit the next best diner?" he suggested.

"Okay. Works for me," she agreed.

He held out his hand to her wordlessly. For a moment she looked at his hand, contemplating what that was supposed to mean, but before she could put two and two together that same exact hand reached for the strap of her bag and gently pulled it off her shoulder.

"Oh, thanks!" she said dumbly and he only nodded before he turned around to head to his rental, some nondescript black SUV.

"I wanted to tell you that you really did a good job tonight. You're match against Natalya wasn't half bad to watch...," he told her casually as they both strapped themselves into their seat belts. She turned her head and threw him a surprised look. She reckoned that the words 'wasn't half bad' meant some sort of praise out of his mouth, which was why she eventually decided to smile.

"Yeah, and I meant what I said back there at the arena, it's really nice to have you back."

He let out a long drawn breath when he grabbed the steering wheel. For a moment he looked ahead, then at her, then through the window pane again, then at her again. What was going on? What was on his mind? She actually asked that question out loud.

"You wanna know what's on me mind, lass? Really?" he threw her a speculative look. "I don't know about you, but after roughly two hours in there, in that loony bin, I feel feckin' exhausted. Too exhausted to mince around matters and keep up pretenses..."

"What sort of pretenses?" she frowned. "What do you want to tell me here?"

He looked at her and it was the first time tonight, apart from that short eye contact in the ring, that there was something like a connection between them. "Look, in there," he nudged his head at the arena, "We've got certain roles to play all the time. It's been a long day and maybe it's because I have to get used to this circus again, but right now I'm sort a lackin' the will and the strength to be the polite and suave version of meself. So how about we cut straight to the chase and be honest with each other."

"Fine with me," she said after she had contemplated his proposal for a couple of seconds.

"Okay, then I guess it's no big deal if I tell you I don't fancy those two places you mentioned earlier," he admitted finally, which made her smile.

"I sort of got that impression already," she told him.

He raised an eyebrow. "I've got to work on being more subtle then."

She just shrugged her shoulders. "Or not. I like straight-shooters."

Stephen looked at her for a moment before he nodded and started driving. Eventually they found a diner a couple of blocks away. They parked the car in front of it and got in. The patrons gave the strange pair, the muscular giant of a man and the petite raven haired girl, some odd looks, but they lost interest after a couple of seconds.

They sat down left of the door. The diner was old-fashioned and looked like it had come straight out of the 50s. The seats they were sitting in were upholstered in red leather, the bar had so much chrome on it, that it almost looked like a Cadillac. Some rock n' roll tune was playing from a jukebox. April half-expected the waitress to come rolling past them on some roller skates.

Instead of a smiley 50s bombshell on skates they got a bored, middle-aged woman with a hairnet who shoved the menu straight under their noses. Stephen threw the waitress a disarming smile and a thank-you, which gave her some pause and managed to provoke some grimace akin to a smile, which was gone, however, just a couple of seconds later when she announced that she'd come back later to take their order.

"Sheesh! Whatever happened to hospitality?! I think she might have torn a muscle trying to smile at you..." April told Stephen when she briefly looked up from her menu.

He grinned. She liked it how his eyes did that interesting twinkly thing whenever he smiled one of those genuine smiles. "As long as she doesn't spit in me food... Talking about food are you ready to order yet?"

She nodded and they placed their orders soon after. To shorten the wait for their food they made some conversation. April would have expected some casual small talk, but true to his announcement earlier in the car, Stephen cut right to the chase again. "So what do you think about being paired off with me?" he asked. "Honest answer," he added and leaned on the table with his forearms.

April scooted around in her seat and grimaced.

"That bad?" he laughed. "Jaysus, you sure have a way to make a lad feel right at ease!"

"It's not that," she tried to quickly appease him. "It just felt like I was finally in a spot where I could have made it without needing to be paired off with some guy. It would have been nice if the higher-ups had put some trust in me and my ability to shine on my own for a change," she said, alternating between staring out of the window and on the table surface in front of her. Now she finally found the courage to look straight at him. He nodded and she inwardly let out a breath of relief. "Well, at least it's not a romance arc again..."

"Thanks, I'm flattered, darlin'," Stephen said dryly and threw her a self-effacing grin.

"I'm sorry," she cringed, "please don't take it personally... I've just been put in a love story with so many of the guys, I must look like a nymphomaniac to the rest of the world."

"No worries. I understand. I'm only messin'," he reassured her.

"Oh. Okay. Good."

"What I do take personally however, is the fact that they feel the need to pair me off right after me injury. What's up with that, ey? Cena gets a championship opportunity on his return and I get...," he fell silent as soon as he noticed what he was actually saying there.

"You get stuck with AJ Lee," she finished the sentence for him. "It's okay to say it. I'm not offended."

He raised his eyebrow at her. "Please, I know how this works. You say that now, but I know how you women are. Every time one of you says she's not offended she's actually royally pissed off."

"No, really," she insisted, "I'd be bummed about not getting a title shot, too."

He looked at her for a couple of seconds. She could feel his eyes scrutinizing her features. Then he finally nodded.

Their food arrived and momentarily prevented any further attempts of having a conversation. April had ordered a milkshake, fries and a burger which she ate with a lot of enthusiasm. Being a wrestler she always had to keep an eye on what she ate, so when cheat day came around once a week, she celebrated it like it was a national holiday.

She dipped one of the fries in the foam on top of her shake and saw Stephen wrinkle his nose. He remained silent however and soon refocused his attention on the steak on his plate.

From time to time she would look up from her own plate to watch him eat. He was dissecting his meat with the precision of a surgeon. Eventually she became aware that staring at him while he was eating was rude, also it would probably lead to him catching her sooner or later, so she decided to talk to him instead. This way she would have a justifiable excuse to keep staring at him. "So what do you do when you're not clobbering people?" she asked out of the blue.

His eyes sparkled mischievously. "I knit and sew. Do ya want me to make ya a scarf?"

Now it was her turn to make a face. What a lame joke! "I thought you were into soccer. Well, I guess since you like knitting and sewing so much, you can make yourself one of those team scarves." The word "ugly" as a means to describe that type of fan merchandise was heavily implied.

"I am into football," he confirmed. "But those scarves are definitely not me cup a tea."

"A-ha," she said. Soccer might be an interesting sport to some people, but she certainly wasn't a fan. Where was the fun in watching grown men kick a ball around over 90 minutes?

In the face of those apparent differences between their characters and tastes she tried to find some common ground. "Do you read comic books?" He shook his head, which forced her to mentally rattle through the catalog of remaining questions she could ask. Naturally, since he disposed of a y-chromosome, it was out of question to ask him whether he liked artfully cutting up his T-shirts or anything that involved collecting little plastic ponies or sprinkling sparkly powder over things like she did. She chewed at her bottom lip pensively, trying to come up with another question. Eventually she did, even though it was kind of lame.

"Punk music?"

"Try grunge or metal," he said.

She nodded. It was a passable reply. "Video games?"

He grinned. "Actually, I don't go anywhere without my X-box."

"Really?" she scooted closer to the edge of her seat. Now he had her interested. "What sort of games do you play? Ego-shooters? Role-playing adventures? Jump-and-runs?"

Now it was his turn to be intrigued. So little April Mendez actually was a video game geek. He would have thought it was only a promotional gimmick for her character; instead her interest in video games seemed to be genuine. He hurried to answer her question.

"Anything really," he said casually, while his grin wasn't anything but casual. You could tell he was having fun talking about video games. "Have ya checked out the latest _Far Cry_?"

She nodded enthusiastically and actually bounced up and down on her seat a little, which amused him. "Yeah, I liked all that sneaking around and driving in those Jeeps. Also the storyline was cool."

"It was," he smiled. "Any other games you like?"

She started enumerating a few titles, counting them off on her fingers with a solemn and concentrated face like what they were talking about was serious business. "_Mass Effect_, _Dragon Age_, _Batman Arkam Asylum_, _Skyrim_, anything _Star Wars_ related..."

"You like _Star Wars_?" he wanted to know.

She gave him a look. "Please, who doesn't? Saying you don't like _Star Wars_ is like saying you hate puppies or little babies."

"Ya might be right about that," Stephen agreed, but continued to watch her thoughtfully. There was something else about the list of games she had enumerated that interested him. "Any reason why yar so much into Batman?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Just that the comics are pretty cool, I guess. And I like the dynamic between Joker and Harley Quinn... In case you haven't noticed, I tried to fashion my in-ring character after her."

He nodded and gave her a long look. That explained a lot. Thinking about it, if they ever decided to make a new Batman movie with Harley Quinn in it, they should probably consider giving April a call. In spite of his appreciation of her acting abilities, one question still needed answering though. "If yar Harley Quinn, what would that make me?"

She gave him a long calculating look over the rim of her secretary glasses and pursed her lips thoughtfully. After some hesitation she finally announced her verdict. "Bane."

"Bane?" he repeated incredulously. "Are ya serious?" His eyebrows practically disappeared in his hairline. "All that fella ever says is one word..."

"Like Brogue?" she threw him a saccharine smile and closed her lips around the straw of her milkshake. There was a brief slurping noise when she emptied the glass.

"I was hoping you'd say Batman," he said and even though his pout was vastly faked, he actually looked a little crestfallen. After all what April had just done was a bit like telling a boy he couldn't grow up to be James Bond.

"Not everyone can be Bats. And by the way, Bane isn't such a lame character. He's really strong..."

It seemed like he was somewhat appeased by that, because the pout disappeared from his face, so they could continue their dinner without any further incident.

Afterward he drove her back to the hotel. It was easier talking to him now, but April still felt self-conscious. He was nice enough, but she had some trouble figuring him out, which really irritated her.

She usually was quite good at figuring people out, at least she hadn't been too far off the mark in the last couple of years. Daniel Bryan, or rather Bryan Danielson, even thinking those two names was a yoga exercise for the brain, was ambitious, like a lot of the guys, and sweet. Phil Brooks was, like his character CM Punk, snarky and a likeable jerk. Nick... She grinned. Well, Nick was just hilarious. During her time as the blonde's fake girlfriend she had had a lot of fun, especially thanks to his wacky sense of humour. It was easy getting along with him and sometimes he would even take her out for some much needed late night candy shopping at the petrol station, which was also a plus. Catering to her sweet tooth always was.

But what about Stephen? How did he fit into her world? After one day with him she had what on him? That he liked steak, video games and honesty? Okay, admittedly the last thing was valuable information, but still a tricky matter in real life. Sometimes people say they like honesty and directness and then, when you are being honest with them, they get all huffy and offended. Was Stephen one of those people? She had no idea. She had no idea how to behave around him, which made her feel out of her depth and a tiny bit insecure.

At least he behaved like the perfect gentleman around her, which she would have found rather nice, if it actually helped her figuring him out, which it didn't by the way. Give it some thought. Isn't it funny how you can still be a major ass-hole and be polite as hell at the same time? Not that Stephen seemed to be a jerk or something. But he potentially still could be without her being any the wiser. April had encountered a lot of people like that in her life, so the information that Stephen had manners wasn't really helpful. At least it didn't help her understand him better.

Well, on the upside she would have plenty of opportunity to have awkward conversations with him, while she tried find out more about him. And yet another one was looming in her near future.

On the way up to her floor they agreed to meet at the gym first thing tomorrow morning. It was a rather practical idea. They both had matches coming up at the next show and needed to rehearse their lines.

After he had escorted her to the door of her hotel room he gave her shoulder a squeeze, said his goodbyes and went his way. She watched him go with a pensive expression on her face. So Harley Quinn and Bane - she wondered how that would work out...


	3. Girl Interrupted

**Author's note: **_Hey, I'm so glad you've enjoyed the story so far. A special thanks misstenten 246, batwolfgirl, xthefirestillburns and qxzkyco. _

_Now, I'm aware that the team affiliations are not up-to-date, but that's what's best for busin... Sorry, best for the storyline. Bear with me, please._

* * *

April was a big fan of Steve Austin, always had been. She had always wanted to grow up to be Stone Cold, but unfortunately her height and gender had been in the way of that, so she had to resign herself to being a president of his fan club instead of actually being him.

One of Stone Cold's more memorable quotes had been "Trust no-one". That particular quote had turned out to be rather helpful in the last few years, actually so helpful April was toying with the idea of having it inked on her skin.

Right now she was firmly adhering to that credo quizzing her best friend Celeste, aka Kaitlyn, about the Celtic Warrior.

"Have you worked with him?"

Celeste shook her head. "I only know him from those promotional tours and the occasional meet-up at conventions, that's it."

"Really?" April fixed her with her gaze. Heading down for a training session at the gym she wasn't wearing glasses. It was impractical. They tended to fog up after a while.

"What do you mean 'really'?" Celeste laughed. "Do you think we have a clandestine affair going on or something?"

April's cheeks became flushed. "No. Course not. What do you take me for? Some psycho?" she muttered. "I'm just having a hard time figuring that guy out..."

"Well, if it helps any, I think he's nice."

"Why?"

Celeste's hands subconsciously reached for the towel over her shoulder. She dug her fingers into it as she thoughtfully chewed her bottom lip. "He never misses and appointment and works his ass off?" She held out her arms helplessly. "Sorry, I got nothing. Why don't you ask Nick? Maybe he knows more about him?"

"Yeah, maybe I will," April announced.

They had reached the hotel gym. It was one of those places that wanted to come across extra-super modern and classy. It was all milk-glass and chrome trying to disguise itself as a wellness center or spa. The glass was so spotless that you could see your own reflection in it. Doubtless some unfortunate hotel employee had spent hours polishing it.

In fact, April's slim figure was reflected by the glass surface. She was donning a pair of black sweatpants and a hoodie under which she wore a black tank top. Working out wasn't a glamorous affair, so she usually didn't bother dressing up for it. However, right now she couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious about meeting Stephen in there when obviously she hadn't made an effort with her outward appearance. Letting people see her without the make-up was something private. It made her feel like she was missing a protective hull that shielded her from the outside world, a world that had a tendency of being a little too hostile at times.

Oh God! She sounded like one of those whiny emo-teenagers in her head. Surely Celeste didn't have those types of problems, even though she was dressed in much the same fashion April was. She seemed to be full of confidence as she sauntered through those glass doors straight into the gym. April followed her and made an effort to rally her own confidence that had been somewhat shaken since being paired off with the Great White.

Speaking of the devil, she let her eyes sweep over the gym and didn't spot him right away. What she did see however, was the usual selection of chubby businessmen trying not to fall off the cardio bikes they were riding, strewn in with a couple a WWE superstars manning the remaining treadmills and bikes, which made the difference between those two groups of customers strikingly prominent.

Celeste spotted Layla and headed over to her to have a chat, which left April searching for Stephen on her own. She marched through the gym. It was one big long-stretched room, light-flooded and very stylish, at the end of which she could see a huge mirror. Now mirrors and weight lifting usually went together for two reasons. Reason number one: You could check your posture while lifting those weights and adjust it accordingly. Reason number two: You could shamelessly indulge in your narcissistic tendencies.

She found Stephen right in front of the mirror, clearly not being narcissistic, but focused on his training. His black T-shirt clung tightly to his upper body. Obviously he had been working out for some time now. Sweat was running down his temples and he was slightly flushed. The amount of weight he was lifting was truly impressive and sort of justified him sweating so profusely.

April cleared her throat to make her presence known. When someone hauls around so much weight, you don't just jump out on him and scream "peekaboo!" Unfortunately that little discrete throat clearing noise wasn't enough to attract his attention, so she tried a fake cough next.

"You all right?" he huffed when he placed the weights back where they belonged.

"Me?" she asked dumbly, before she realized that he had thought her little coughing fit to be real. "Yeah, sure!" April said and waved him off. "Right as rain. Peachy."

"Uh-huh," he answered and wiped his face with the towel he had casually placed on the weight rack behind him. "Wanna head on over there and do some cardio while we rehearse our lines?" He pointed his thumb in the direction of the nearest cardio bikes.

"Sure," she nodded and grinned brightly. "I usually do at least half an hour of cardio before I get started on the weights."

"Well, that works out nicely then. Just enough time for us to go over the dialogue. Me lady, if you please," he did a little mock bow with his head and motioned her to walk past him. He seemed to be in a chipper sort of mood today, what with all the smiles and grins he was throwing her way. Pity she wasn't a morning person. It was seven and her stomach was still empty. Maybe she should tell him that before he thought she was in a bad mood because of him.

"I'm not a morning person," she told him almost apologetically and also somewhat randomly as she climbed on her bike. "It's no good talking to me before I had a cup of coffee and something to eat."

"So why didn't you say so when we made the appointment yesterday?"

She shrugged. "I didn't want to come off as bitchy and overly complicated..."

"Erm... okay. So when do you usually work out?" he asked conversationally as he sat down on the saddle of his bike. Her eyes involuntarily fell on the golden emblem stitched onto the left upper-thigh of his track pants - Liverpool. A brief smile flashed over her face. One that came with secretly figuring something out about a person who is unaware of giving away a piece of personal information.

Her eyes settled on his face again when she became aware she still owed him an answer. "Late in the evenings mostly. I like it when the gym is empty and I get to do my stuff without anyone watching."

His eyes narrowed in incomprehension. "Come on, April. You're in good shape. Why do you care who's watchin'?"

She noticed the underhanded compliment, which he probably wasn't even aware of and also the fact that unlike most of the other wrestlers he hadn't resorted to giving her some "funny" nickname yet like Tiny or Bunz. This realization resulted in two things: Her being more favorable towards giving him an honest reply and her first genuine smile this morning. "Because sometimes I don't like seeing other people. I especially don't like seeing them when they make comments like "Wow, for a girl you are really strong!", and here she lowered her voice and spoke really slowly like she was mimicking the village idiot, "Or "I thought only ants were able to lift their own weight."

He frowned. "You know what? You should come train with me and I'll scare away all those gobshites."

"What's a gobshite?" she asked automatically.

"An idiot," he explained with a small half-smile.

"Gobshite," she grinned wickedly. "I like it. I think I'm going to integrate that word into my vocabulary."

He laughed. "Well, don't try te work it into yer lines fer tomorrow, creative won't like it. Yer still supposed te hate me."

She threw him a sweet smile which also had a slight vibe of irony to it. "Supposed to? My hatred is usually gratuitous...," his eyes widened in surprise and she hurried to add the next words. Apparently they still didn't know each other well enough for those kind of jokes. He still didn't get her sense of humor. "And also not directed at you."

* * *

Another Friday, another match. But this time AJ wouldn't be doing the fighting. She had to go out and play her role as arm-candy. As if Sheamus' big biceps needed to be prettied up! It was an effort completely wasted, because the man was nothing but brute force. What good would her presence do at ringside?

Now, she had to give him that he was driven. It was also kind of impressive how he had marched up to Vickie Guerrero and demanded she'd give him a shot at the Intercontinental Title. But then again that was the reason why she needed to listen to Vickie's squeaky and obnoxious voice now. Not so impressive. The woman just rubbed her the wrong way. Apparently the feeling was mutual, because the way Vickie regarded her now, with that subtle expression of disgust on her face, it didn't look like Sheamus would get what he was asking for any time soon.

"Oi, Vickie!" Sheamus snapped his fingers in front of the woman's face impatiently, "I said I wanted a match against Curtis Axel tonight. Now am I gettin' one or what?"

Vickie's eyes settled on the Irishman's face. He was towering over her and she had to look up, but she still managed to not look intimidated despite the apparent height difference between her and Sheamus. "Well, excuse me!" Oh, God! There was that awful screeching sound of her voice again! AJ covered her ears and rolled her eyes. "Last time I checked I still set up the matches for this show..."

She took another breath, obviously about to launch herself into an angry tirade, but never got to say what she wanted to, because somehow Paul Heyman had managed to slither into her office and sneak up on the occupants of the room like an evil, soundless Walrus-Ninja. As always Curtis Axel followed his mentor on foot like a good little puppy.

AJ subconsciously took a step closer to Sheamus. Not that she expected any kind of protection from him. Sheamus would probably applaud and cheer on anyone who was going to attack her. Still, what bad could come of making it seem like he was her protector if it kept her out of harm's way?

Sheamus noticed her moving closer and raised her eyebrow. Doubtlessly he was already preparing some smart-ass comment about her behavior in his head - you needed to allow the brute some time to formulate some coherent sentences – but the sleek voice of Paul Heyman cut in before anyone in the room got the chance to say something.

"Miss Guerrero...," Paul smiled a greasy smile at the General Manager of Smackdown which made AJ throw up a little in her mouth, "Do you mind if I call you Vickie?" he clasped her hand and pressed a kiss to its back like a proper sycophant. "You're surely not actually considering giving this struggling former champ a shot at fighting my client, Intercontinental Champion Curtis Axel." The way the name Curtis Axel fell from his lips had something unsettling to it. As though he was pronouncing the name of a god-like being. AJ shuddered.

Vickie looked at Heyman in surprise. "Why not? Are you afraid he'll take Axel's title?" She pulled her hand out of Heyman's grasps rather forcefully. Apparently she was not going to be swayed by the Walrus' somewhat repulsive charm. Big surprise!

"Because, Vickie," Heyman started to explain, "you see Sheamus here thinks he can just waltz back in here and try to claim what Curtis Axel and I have been working so hard for over the last couple of months. He things he can claim the title, just like that. Without doing anything. He needs to be shown his place. He needs to understand that he should have stayed away." Now he looked Sheamus straight in the eyes. He probably felt brave enough to do so because Curtis Axel was standing right behind him. "He needs to learn that his star is sinking lower and lower and lower," the word 'lower' was enunciated with a heavy dose of sadistic glee and emphasized by Paul lowering his hand successively to make this metaphor appear more plastic. "While my clients star is rising and rising and rising." Contrary to before, he was now gradually raising his hand to underline his words. AJ could see in Sheamus' face that he was about to snap.

"Curtis Axel has been holding the Intercontinental Title for months now. Curtis Axel has defeated the likes of Triple H and John Cena. So I'm asking you now, Sheamus, what makes you think you can dare challenge him? What makes you think you're worthy of Curtis Axel's time?" Here Heyman inserted a dramatic pause and took the time to look at both AJ and Sheamus with something akin to disgust. "Just look at what you've become. They've made you the warden of Girl Interrupted. How very, very, very low you've fallen..."

Hadn't AJ just said that Sheamus was about to snap? Well, now he snapped. He surged forward. "I'll show you just how weak I am!" he snarled, his angry outburst making Heyman actually take a step back, while Curtis Axel took one step towards the enraged Irishman.

Before the situation got ugly AJ decided to jump into action. She would have gladly stood by and watched the whole exchange dissolve into utter chaos without doing a thing, but Heyman had insulted her. Who'd he think he was, calling her "Girl Interrupted"?

She cleared her throat noisily. "Excuse me!" she mocked Vickie and immediately got her attention. After having stolen Vickie's boyfriend Dolph Ziggler from her, AJ needed to do very little to get her immediate attention. The two women despised each other with the force of two burning suns.

Incidentally claiming Vickie's attention also let to getting the attention of everyone else in the room. How very practical! AJ grinned.

"Girl Interrupted," she gave Heyman the evil eye, "would like to say something... I know we had some minor differences in the past, Vickie," she smiled at the older woman sweetly, "but I'm sure we'll both see eye to eye on this. Remember how Paulie here was gushing about his beautiful Ryback...," here AJ rung her hands and rolled her eyes sky-ward like she was acting the role of a teenage girl drooling over the high-school's quarterback, while she was openly mocking Paul Heyman, "... and his ability to beat CM Punk to a bloody pulp? Well, too bad that his dimwitted Donkey Kong failed to deliver later, huh? If you ask me Paulie's nothing but one," pause, "big", another pause before the grand finale, "...show-off."

If there was one word that rubbed Vickie the wrong way, it was surely the word "show-off". AJ waited with a grin for the other woman's reaction and just like she had expected she managed to get a rise out of Vickie.

"Gentlemen," the General Manager of Smackdown eyed the opposing parties, "your match for tonight is on."

Somehow that announcement managed to turn Sheamus' anger into glee rather spontaneously. For the first time ever he looked at AJ with a beaming smile on his face. It was sort of unexpected and made her feel strange. Before he had only ever looked at her with an angry snarl on his face or a frown, now he was smiling. She didn't know what do think about that.

The frown returned to his face when he looked at Heyman and Axel again, however. "See you later, Paulie," he told him, picking up on the nickname AJ had given him before with a certain malicious glee.

* * *

AJ was slamming her fists on the apron. "Bam! Bam! Bam!" they went, while she was practically screaming her lungs out, trying to cheer Sheamus on. "Come on! Come on! Get up!"

Whatever team she was on, she didn't like to be on the losing one and especially not the one which was losing to Curtis Axel and Paul Heyman. No, they were not going to lose to them.

Axel was going for another pin. "Sheamus!" she hollered across the ring. "Get up!" He kicked out at two and it looked like he would be able to get to his feet again. She grabbed her Diva Championship Belt from the floor where she had deposited it early and clutched it to her chest to ward off a sudden onslaught of nerves. Heyman had used her brief moment of distraction to direct Sheamus' attention on him by waving and shouting insults at him which enabled Axel to get in his finisher. AJ gaped. She gaped because it was all she could do at this point.

One, two, three! Sheamus lost the match. He was slowly coming to, shaking his head with a dazed expression on his face. He was just coherent enough to see a petite raven-haired girl jump Heyman from behind, trying to claw out his eyes. Her screams sounded like the high-pitched cries of an attacking bird. He shook his head and ran his fingers over his face before he grabbed for the ropes and hoisted himself up. One cautious step on wobbly legs, the next was already better, a brief pause. He collected his strength before he swiftly crossed the ring and pulled AJ off of Heyman's back before Axel decided to do something about it.

She gave him a sour look, doubtlessly seconds away from launching herself into a tirade. They didn't have time for that, he decided looking down at her for a moment before he unceremoniously hoisted her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her tiny fists hit his back, but without doing any real damage, so he turned and started walking away. "My belt! My belt!" he heard her scream over and over again. Sheamus sighed and stopped walking.

Outside the ring, at the commentator's desk, Jerry 'the King' Lawler was surprised by what happened next. "Folks, it looks like Sheamus is actually turning around to get AJ's belt. Well, good idea! Maybe that will stop her screaming..."

"I don't know what she's screaming about in the first place, after all Curtis Axel won fair and square," JBL retorted.

"If you can call Heyman's interference fair and square...," Michael Cole interjected.

"He was only doing what every good manager does: Secure the win for his protege. Nothing wrong with that," JBL said with conviction.

"Well, doubtlessly Sheamus and AJ will be back for another fight with Axel after this one."

* * *

She was staring down at his butt. She had to admit as far as butts went it was a rather nice and shapely one and there were worse things to be looking at than this for the last couple of minutes.

They had by now made their way up the ramp and entered the backstage area and yet he seemed to have no inclination of putting her down soon. "Erm... Steve," she said sweetly, "way up here the view is really nice and all," she cringed a little at her own choice of words. Yeah, the view of his butt. Right. "But I can walk on my own, you know? So how about you let me down."

She felt his hands grab her naked midriff, she was wearing one of her trademark tees that showed-off her slim waist, as he lifted her off his shoulder. His hands were rough and gentle and soon let go of her when her feet touched the ground again. Involuntarily her eyes wandered up to his face.

He shot her a sheepish look. In fact he downcast his eyes and scratched the back of his head. She couldn't help but smile at that. "Sorry, I got carried away." His native accent was more pronounced when he said those words.

April grinned. The disgruntled version of Stephen was really cute. It made her warm up to him a bit more. "No, I got carried away. Obviously," she joked lamely and slightly punched his upper arm.

He chuckled and met her gaze. "Sorry, that must have been a bit disgusting what with all the sweatin' I've been doin' thanks to the bout."

"Yeah, totally. Half the time I was afraid I'd just slide off," she teased him and quickly added the next words as she saw the beginnings of a genuinely preoccupied expression on his face. "Relax, you had a match. No biggie! I'm sure you'll get a chance to see sweaty April soon."

She had not just said that, had she? Oh, God! She hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. She could hear Stephen's soft laughter, but she preferred to keep her eyes shut tightly. "Don't say it, please!" she held up her index finger at him, hopefully not sticking it in his nostril, since she still had her eyes closed.

"Say what exactly?" he chuckled and she decided to risk a peak at him. He was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. "I'm gonna hit the showers."

"I swear if you're going to tell someone about what I just said...," she threatened, actually rising her fist in the air.

He smiled and patted the shoulder of a rather baffled April. "Come on, lass. I'm a smart fella. Gettin' on yer bad side doesn't strike me as a good idea. Yer far too handy with a pair of scissors," he pointedly looked at her artfully cut up shirt. "Who knows what damage yer going to do with them..."

"Yeah, better keep that in mind," she said lamely pointing her fingers at him and winked. She was not very witty when she was embarrassed.

"Showers," he pointed over his shoulder with a grin.

"Yeah, yeah. See you later on the bus," she answered somewhat distractedly.


	4. Put On A Brave Face

April was sitting next to Celeste on the bus just like she usually did. They had been chatting to each other about the events of the show, which had been nice and relaxing, but the laid back after-show vibe was quickly whisked away by the ringing of April's phone. The caller ID read: Vince McMahon. April gulped heavily. She was hesitant to answer that particular call. Getting a phone call from the boss either meant something extremely good or bad.

April had not gotten a lot of phone calls from Vince McMahon in her run with WWE, so naturally her stomach plummeted in dread when she heard her boss's sonorous and deep voice in her ear.

The talk started out politely and rather superficial: an inquiry after her health followed by some small-talk over the last show. After that however they approached dangerous territory: the Diva's Championship title.

"April, we both know that this moment would have come sooner or later...," McMahon started.

"I'm going to lose my title soon, aren't I?" she interrupted him, feeling her throat go dry and her stomach clench. Next to her Celeste stiffened in her seat and clutched her friend's arm. April, however was hardly aware of what was happening around her. To her the title wasn't just business, it was something personal. Winning it had made her realize how much she had accomplished in the comparatively little time she had been with the company. It had made her proud, so proud in fact that she had had the date of her title win tattooed on the back of her neck. Things couldn't get more personal than that and now McMahon was meaning to tell her that she would soon lose her title...? And to whom?

"I'm afraid so," she heard McMahon say. "Natalya is going to win the next two matches against you, making her the new Diva's Champion."

Natalya. Alright, that seemed likely. At least Nattie knew how to wrestle. It was no shame losing the title to her. She nodded, completely forgetting that the boss wouldn't be able to see that. This was not a video call. Video calls were above her pay-grade and in John Cena territory.

"I see," she finally said in rather clipped tones. The fact that she acknowledged that news didn't mean that she was okay with it. In fact she was far, far, faaaar from being okay with it, but she was a professional and wouldn't make a scene. Especially not on the bus with all the other wrestlers.

"I can understand you're disappointed," she heard McMahon say in an attempt to comfort her, which he soon followed up with some inane and empty promises about her soon winning the title back.

"You can understand?! You don't understand squat! Of course I am disappointed!" she wanted to scream at him. But instead she kept quiet and concentrated on keeping it together through the rest of the call.

She had been aware her title reign would eventually end, just not that soon. The fact that it came so sudden was the real surprise and rocked her to the core.

"I'll be all right," she lied at some point of the conversation. It was what McMahon expected her to say and she wanted to keep her job, so she said it. In reality all she wanted was to end that phone call and retreat to the solitude of her hotel room where she could scream, kick at things and pull at her hair like she wanted to and not sit around and put on a brave face.

"Of course you will be, April. You are one of the greatest female talents the WWE has right now," McMahon ended the call with shameless and rather pointless flattery.

"Thank you," she said numbly and hung up. Celeste was staring at her with big round eyes, ready for her to explain what had just happened or just say anything really. April grimaced. She didn't feel like talking. She just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Maybe stuff her face with some candy or ice-cream and watch some TV. But right now crying was out of the question. The bus was a snake pit. True, there were people she liked and trusted, but also people who just would just love to see her dissolve in tears. Fortunately being her best friend, Celeste belonged to the former category, so April leaned her head against her shoulder and stayed silent. There was no big need to explain. Celeste had heard half of the phone call anyway.

"You okay?" her friend whispered to her discretely and stroked her head once for emphasis.

"No, but I will be," April said quietly, her voice sounding devoid of any emotions. "I just have to get off this bus." She felt Celeste nod next to her.

After twenty more torturous minutes they finally arrived at the hotel. Soon they would be filing out of the bus and grabbing their gear. April couldn't wait to finally get out of that stupid seat of hers.

* * *

Somehow Stephen ended up standing behind her in the aisle while they were waiting to get off the bus. When he stepped behind her and got a little too close to her because the bus was really crowded, she didn't turn, which was unusual. Not even after he had said 'sorry' at least twice displaying those manners his mother had drilled into very early on. Normally people were interested in quintessential things such as who was standing right behind them. Curiouser and curiouser.

As he looked closer, he noticed that her posture was very stiff, as if she had swallowed a stick. He touched her shoulder to get her attention. Underneath the palm of his hand her shoulder tensed. It was strange to think that he had managed to startle her by doing something as trivial as touching her shoulder on an overcrowded bus. And yet he had. Either she was deeply in thought or something was wrong. He quickly pulled back his hand.

When she turned around to finally look at him, her face was completely expressionless which was rather preoccupying, because April's face was usually anything but expressionless. She was like a walking, talking emoticon really. Seeing that completely void expression on her face now was quite unsettling.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sounding and feeling genuinely concerned.

"Yes, thank you," she answered in an almost mechanical voice.

There was no time to ask further questions, because people started moving and everyone was getting off the bus. And she was gone so quickly that he didn't get another chance to talk to her.

As he made his way up to his own hotel room, ready for dinner and a movie, he just couldn't shake the thought of her and her strange behavior. The message tone of his cell phone brought him back to the present and his fingers ghosted over the touchscreen to see what it was all about. Headquarters had emailed him the new scripts for next week. He briefly scrolled through them, his eyes wandering over the screen of his smart-phone. His thumb was hovering over it motionlessly for several seconds when his eyes randomly fell on the title of one particular scene: "Sheamus comforts AJ after her title loss".

What? What? What the bleeding hells?! He blinked several times, but the words were still there. Aaaah, crap! No wonder she was in a bad mood. Being the champion, you usually were the first to know when you would lose your title. McMahon had probably made sure to inform her before the new scripts were out.

Without giving it much thought, he quickly started composing a text to April. The only thing he was clear about was the need to let her know just how genuinely sorry he was for her title loss and her situation in general. After all he had been through this himself, so he could sympathize.

"Hey, I just got the scripts for next week. I'm really sorry about your title. If I can help in any way, let me know. Whether it is: playing video games or just lending a sympathetic ear, I'm here." He signed the message with his name, unsure whether she had his phone number in her address book or not.

* * *

When April made her way down to breakfast the next morning she had her hoodie pulled over her head, her glasses on and her long black hair down. She didn't want anybody to see her face. It hadn't looked too nice in the mirror this morning. Dark circles under eyes that looked tired and sad. Definitely not fit for the public.

Before she had decided on coming down she had spent at least twenty minutes internally debating whether that was a smart move. She could have ordered room service after all, but she had come to the conclusion that she wouldn't give everybody else the satisfaction of not seeing her down at breakfast.

She had already run into Nick on the way down, which wasn't such a bad thing. He had just given her a hug and asked her whether she had gotten his text last night. April had shaken her head. She hadn't even had a look at her cell phone yesterday. She had been too busy feeling sorry for herself and ranting to Celeste about the injustice of losing her title.

Now that she had a bowl of muesli and yoghurt standing in front of her and a cup of coffee, she started scrolling through her messages. There was indeed a message from Nick. It even made her chuckle despite her bad mood. And there was one from Phil too which, lo and behold, was surprisingly sympathetic and 100% sarcasm free. He must have strained a muscle or something writing this. She quickly composed an answer.

Somebody plonked down in the chair opposite of her. Apparently it was someone with a death wish, rather large hands and a body whose proportions went with those large hands. She held up her index finger in order to admonish the stranger to be patient and wait. She wasn't done reading her messages, so whatever the guy opposite of her wanted, who probably was one of her colleagues she didn't want to see right now anyway, it could wait.

There was a message from Stephen. Wow, that was nice! Had she read it sooner, maybe she would have taken him up on that offer of playing a video game together last night. She quickly composed a reply and sent it. The cell phone of the guy sitting opposite of her chirped just as soon as she had hit that send button.

Oh, no! She looked up to confirm her suspicion. Her eyes wandered up the hands that came attached to muscular arms which were covered in a dark blue fleece sweater, which came in rather handy since it was cold outside. Finally their eyes met. His blue ones sparkled at her with a fair share of humor from underneath the rim of a cap that read, big surprise there, Liverpool.

Stephen quickly broke eye contact with her, giving her much the same treatment she had given him previously. He held up his index finger, in much the same fashion as she had done previously and got out his own cell phone to read her text. The text, one might add, she had composed only seconds earlier consisting of the following words: "Thank you. Maybe I'll still take you up on that offer. Do you have some games where I can smash stuff?"

Quite predictably her own cell phone soon chirped again. "Yes. But I have one important question right now: Do you think it's okay to talk to you now or should I leave you alone?"

She looked up at him, but he only shrugged and gave her an innocent look before he took a sip of his own coffee. The situation was cute and somewhat cheesy. Well, make that extremely cheesy, after all they were sitting opposite of each other at the table, only a couple of inches apart and texting. She decided to raise her left eyebrow. "How about we just sit here and have breakfast together?" she suggested.

"Works for me," he said casually.

April picked up her spoon again and went back to eating her muesli. Stephen had brought a plate of omelet with him and started to dig in as well. They ate in silence. Astonishingly there was some sort of communication going on between them nevertheless. She raised the spoon to her mouth, he nudged his head towards the entrance of the room. The spoon remained hovering before her lips. The Bella twins had just entered, clad in two tight little color-coordinated dresses, a camera team following right on their high heels. Stephen rolled his eyes and stabbed rather energetically at his omelet with his fork.

She nodded her head in agreement and shoved the spoon into her mouth, smearing some of the yoghurt on her chin in the process. He noticed and pointed at her chin with a smirk. She just gave him a confused look. He pointed at her chin again. She gave him another confused look, which was more wide-eyed this time around. He let out an annoyed huff. "Oh for the luv of God! You've got yoghurt all over your chin!"

She quickly wiped at her chin with her napkin. "Gone?"

He narrowed his eyes and regarded her closely. "Yep!"

The Bellas glided past their table gracefully. She was thankful the yoghurt was gone now, but she also noticed how Stephen made quite an effort to hunch in his seat and appear inconspicuous. He even pulled his cap a bit lower into his face. So he wasn't up for a round of tacky reality television. Good to know! She could relate.

"Another fan of the Bellas, huh?" she grinned.

"The girls are all right. I just don't want to have a camera lens shoved in me face during breakfast, is all. Some people actually appreciate a little privacy now and then," he grumbled.

"Afraid the rest of the world will see you in your favorite sweater and with your hair hidden away under a cap?"

"How did you know that was my favorite sweater?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

She shrugged her shoulders casually. "Just a guess." She quickly changed topic, because he was still shooting her suspicious glances. Before he started pointing his finger at her and shouting "Witch! Witch!" it was best they started talking about something else. "So you're not into reality TV. What kind of shows are you into then?" she asked conversationally.

He hesitated, then shoveled another sporkful of omelet in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "_Father Ted_."

"What's _Father Ted_?" she inclined her head to the left and watched him with a curious expression on her face.

"It's a sitcom from the 90's about Father Ted who lives on a small Irish island with two other priests. One's an absolute gobshite and the other one's old, likes drinkin', girls and swearin'," he explained.

"There's that word again I like," she grinned, but also wrinkled her nose skeptically in an afterthought when she further contemplated the cast of the show and the possible scenarios they could be involved in. "And that's fun?"

"Yeah, it is," he nodded emphatically. "Wanna watch an episode after breakfast? Maybe it will cheer you right up."

"I don't know... I think I'll pass for now. I'd rather go with a good old-fashioned video game if you don't mind."

There was briefly a glimmer of disappointment on his face, but then he said "It's up te you," and it was gone again.

* * *

She was hovering sort of self-consciously in the door to his hotel suite. Her hands were stuffed in the pockets of her hoodie and she was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. He was already inside the room and threw her a surprised look. Had she changed her mind now? Or was it just that she was experiencing a belated onslaught of cold feet? It wasn't like they were going to do something scandalous here. After all this wasn't a date, and he wasn't interested in her like that.

"Ya comin'?" he asked, waving her closer with his hand.

"Yeah, sure," she answered and propelled herself over the doorstep. After she had closed the door sort of circumstantially, it occurred to the both of them that they were alone for the first time without the pretext of something work related and it felt strange.

"So where are your games?" she blurted out and he could tell he was making her nervous, because April was usually more suave than this. What was even stranger about this situation was the fact that he felt kind of nervous too, but couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly the reason was.

As she stared expectantly at him with her hazel eyes, he came out of his reflective trance and walked over to the bag that held his console and a couple of games he had packed for the road. "Here, let's have a look and decide what we can play," he suggested, because he couldn't come up with something better to say off the top of his head.

She scrutinized his game collection with a critically raised eyebrow and then finally nodded approvingly which made him feel like he had just passed a test. "I don't know this one. Is it any good?" she held up a game in front of his face. The cover showed a warrior and a female archer in the throes of battle. His eyes fell on the title '_Hunted_'. Right, he remembered buying that because it was on sale and the chick on the cover looked sort of hot.

He shrugged. "Frankly? No idea."

She turned the game and read the text on the back. "It's got a two-player mode," she told him. "We might as well try this one. The chick looks kind of hot... And are those pointy ears? I like pointy ears," she grinned for the first time this morning.

Somehow that grin made him relax considerably and warm up to her a bit more. Who knew? Maybe he'd even find it in him to forgive her for not wanting to watch _Father Ted_ with him at some point.

Now that that was settled, the part came where he had to awkwardly crawl around on his hands and knees in front of the TV to set up the console. After that was done, he sat down on the sofa next to her with a huff and grabbed the controller. "Cheers!" he handed her hers.

"Thanks," she said quietly and scooted around in her seat uncomfortably. He noticed how she seemed tense, what with her posture being stiff like a stick. So he reckoned that all it took for her to relax somewhat was for him to relax as well. He got comfortable in his corner of the couch. They were sitting there as far apart from each other as possible, which was kind of ridiculous. It was almost as if they were consciously avoiding sitting too close to each other. He had no idea what that said about them on a subconscious level, but he was sure it was nothing good, so he subtly scooted a bit closer to her. He kicked off his shoes and laid his sock clad feet on the coffee table. April registered his actions with a quizzical expression on her face, but ultimately it seemed like she approved of them because he noticed how her posture relaxed as well.

"Mind if I...," she looked at her own Converse pointedly.

"You got smelly feet?" he gave her a narrow-eyed look of appraisal.

She wrinkled her little nose in indignation. "Does it matter? What if yours are?"

His mouth curled into a crooked smirk. He had to admit he liked it when she got like that. Whenever she let a bit of her temper show, it made him believe she was warming up to him a little. Or at least enough to not hide her emotions from him. Like when she had compared him to that Bane fella from the Batman comics... Not that he approved of being likened to drug-dependent super-villain. A highly intelligent druggie-super-villain, as his Internet research from last night had shown, but still a druggie-villain. No, what he liked about it her remark about Bane was that it showed she had some sense of humor and possibly even a cheeky side to her.

Her waiting gaze called him back to the present. "Well, I guess we'll both have to take that risk then, huh?" he told her. She nodded and kicked off her shoes before she sat down on the couch again, but this time cross-legged like she was getting comfortable in front of her own TV at home.

They started playing and the game. It turned out to be some solid hack-and-slay-action which was something they both enjoyed. Things got slightly more hectic though, when Stephen repeatedly got himself into trouble by stumbling from one skirmish into the next. Of course, ultimately he always was one paying for his mistakes, because the enemy dished out some major damage. And mostly it was him who took the brunt of that damage because as an archer April attacked from a distance.

Pretty soon they fell into a routine. Or maybe the term vicious circle would have been more befitting. It always started out with Stephen saying something semi-polite like "Now would be a great time to show your healing skills", which upon her not complying straight away quickly turned into a slightly more urgent "April, big fella getting his arse kicked right in front of you!" and culminated in a half-shouted "Get your bleedin' arse over here right now!"

For some reason she liked it when he got flustered in real life. Whenever something ruffled his feathers, it made him less guarded and tight-lipped. Besides huffy-Stephen was fun. He vastly resembled his in-ring persona and frankly she had to admit that she had always had a weak spot for Sheamus. But now not even her warming up to him could prevent the untimely death of his avatar in the game. There were simply too many enemies.

"April!" he shot her an unnerved gaze and lowered his controller.

"What?! Stop looking at me like that! It's not my fault," she told him. "Why do you have to keep trampling straight into the middle of those big-ass clearings anyway? They've got skirmish written all over them! Can't you see that?!"

"It's an action role-playing game, ya know," he actually picked up the game and held it up in front of her face. "'Action' being the key word here. It's not like I can sit behind a log for half an hour and wait till you've picked off all the enemies with yer arrows, can I?"

"And it's not like I'm your walking, talking, arrow shooting, first aid-kit either, okay?" She added the word 'okay' to the end of her sentence with a certain aggressiveness. As if she wanted to clock him over the head with it. The expression in her eyes surely said as much. "Here! Maybe you wanna try being E'lara now," she held the controller under his nose and unsuccessfully made a reach for his which he immediately sheltered from her attack with his body. He partially turned his back to her, so she wouldn't be able to wrestle it from his grasp. What he hadn't counted on though was her willingness to actually get physical right away and try to wrestle the controller from his grasp despite the fact that she practically had to sprawl herself all over him. Then again their job was a very hands-on occupation and surely encouraged that sort of behavior.

She tugged at the controller, which only budged a couple of inches because he held it tightly in his grasp. Seen from a logical point of view there was no way she could win this fight, still she didn't give up and he couldn't help but admire that about her. Her tongue poked out from the corner of her mouth as she pulled at the controller and as a consequence his arm, too. He wondered what would happen if he let go. And since there was nothing sharp, pointy or hard behind her she could fall on, only the soft surface of the couch, he decided to let go of the controller that very instant. With a surprised squeal April fell back and landed on the couch beside him rather ungracefully for a world-class athlete. He decided to just smile at her smugly for now. She whipped her hair back out from her face, took in his triumphant and complacent smile, regarded the controller and then him again. Slowly, ever so slowly a smile started forming on her face.

"You're an idiot," she mumbled and sat up straight again, trying to get her hair back under control that was hanging over her shoulders and into her face sort of messily. "I hate you," she added for good measure, trying to fight down her grin.

"That's what I get fer tryin' te cheer ya up?" he asked and raised his eyebrows. There were two things that were charming about this question and he was counting on them to work, even on a wild card like April. For starters there was that look of fake innocence on his face, which usually did the trick. Also, he was hoping his accent would have some sort of endearing effect on her. It usually had on a lot of people.

"You're trying to cheer me up?" she raised an eyebrow. "Try harder!" Her tone was difficult to interpret. Could be anything from joking to half-way serious. He couldn't tell. He didn't know her well enough.

"Ooookaaaaaay," he stretched out that little word in attempt to buy himself some time. "So I tried video games, being nice," at that she scoffed, but at least in a playful way, so he continued, "I guess it's too early in the day to fill you up with whiskey or beer, but judging by the size of you I'd only need a thimble."

"Hey, that was low...," she told him and raised her index finger to admonish him to behave himself.

"I'm sorry I...," he back-pedaled rather quickly, worried that he had taken things a little too far. After all they didn't know each other that well. Maybe he had misjudged the situation.

But before he got to finish his sentence she waved him off. "You need to stop apologizing all the time. There you had me starting to think we were having some sort of bonding moment over mildly offending each other and you go and ruin everything by saying you're sorry."

He fought back the urge to apologize again. He couldn't help it really. After all it was something that had been drilled into him as a child. Stand too close to some – apologize. Queue incorrectly – apologize. Be rude – apologize. Trample on somebody's foot – apologize. Now, since the words 'I'm sorry' were off the menu, he decided to just shrug his shoulders and grin. April was really a strange sort of person. She was a bit like one of his mates. The only difference between her and the guys, apart from the obvious biological ones, was that she came with a cute smile and a pretty face, which made dealing with her oddly complicated.

She surprised him yet again by lapsing into seriousness for a moment. "It's not like I don't appreciate what you're trying to do here...," she admitted quietly and with a lowered gaze. "I really do. I mean after all you know what we're talking about here, being a former Champion and stuff. How...," here she faltered. "How did you get over losing your title anyway?"

He gave her question some thought. "Well...," he started. How to best put it? The words that were on the tip of his tongue weren't really too encouraging. After trying to make them sound better in his head for a couple of seconds, he eventually gave up trying to sugar coat the truth for her and decided to just come out with it. "Honestly? I didn't. Now I want it back even more."

She gave him an unreadable look, so he decided to elaborate. "Ask anyone who's ever held a title. Ask Phil or John or your friend Celeste...," at the mention of Celeste's name a weird expression passed over her face. Seconds later she shot up from the couch and started frenetically looking for her discarded shoes.

"Feck! I sure have a talent for puttin' me big ol', clumsy foot in it, huh?" he asked, trying to get some kind of explanation out of her.

She was already hopping around on one foot trying to get her second shoe on. As a consequence, seen from his perspective, it was high time she did some explaining.

"No, I sure have a talent of putting my foot in it. Not you. Guess who I have been complaining to about losing my title the whole time last night?!" she said bitterly as she forcefully pulled her second shoe over her foot. "I have to go and apologize. Like right now!"

"Hey, don't ya want to...," he started, but she was already out of the door. He let out a sigh. For some reason something about dealing with her frustrated him. Sometimes they would be completely on the same wave length and then, just seconds later, things would go awry. Was it supposed to be that difficult dealing with another person? And why the hell did he feel the need to go back on their conversations and try to figure out where things had gone wrong?

* * *

Celeste looked through the spyhole. There was a big pack full of M&Ms hovering in front of it. She liked M&Ms, also when she looked really closely through that spyhole she could see the tip of a Converse poke out from underneath the edge of those M&Ms. Not that the M&Ms were that gigantic, she supposed that was thanks the perspective. Anyway, it was rather those Converse than the candy that got her to unlock the door.

"I'm so incredibly sorry. I'm like the world's biggest ass-hole. No, scratch that! I AM the world's biggest ass-hole. Insensitive, thoughtless, stupid...," April continued berating herself.

"Huh? Sorry, I think I'm not following. Why are you the world's biggest douche again?" Celeste took the opportunity to snatch the proffered candy from April's hand. The package made an encouraging soft rattling noise.

"Because..." April looked at her with big round eyes as if she wanted to say 'Don't you see the obvious answer?', "I've been ranting about losing my title to you all of last night. To you of all people! I mean how could I be so dumb as to overlook the fact that the same thing happened to you just a couple of months ago and to make matter worse – because of me?!"

Celeste calmly ripped the package of candy open and poured some of it into the palm of her hand. "Want some?" she held it out to April who looked at her with a disbelieving expression on her face.

"Haven't you listened to anything I've been saying?"

Celeste popped a red M&M into her mouth. "I have. Your concern is cute, but really unfounded. I'm really fine with it."

"You're fine with losing the Diva's title. YOU?! You are fine with that?" April looked at her with her eyes wide open. "Seriously?"

Celeste shrugged her shoulders like one would shrug over forgetting an old umbrella on the bus that wouldn't open anymore. Same casualness. It slightly unnerved April, but only so long as her friend hadn't explained herself to her. "It wasn't that big of a deal, because I lost it to you, so I figured it kind of stayed in the family."

The next sound coming out of Celeste's mouth was something like an 'uff' because April was hugging her for what it was worth a second later. "I'm still sorry for being a total douche. You're the best friend I've ever had."

Celeste grinned and hugged her back. "It's all right, really. No big deal. I'm okay. Have an M&M, you'll feel better afterward, sweetie."


	5. Swimming With Sharks

**Author's note**: _A big shout-out to my amazing beta UntilNeverDawns who's doing an amazing job with helping my with this story. Also a 'hello' and a 'thank you' to misstenten 246 and batwolfgirl! Your comments made my day! _

_Thank you to everyone reading in general. If you want to make me especially happy, drop me a few lines. And now on with the story._

* * *

So after Natalya had put her through the Sharpshooter and she had tapped out, AJ decided to just lay there and stare at the ceiling. The very far away ceiling which was high, high above her.

Moments like these were when the lines between who April Mendez was and AJ Lee sort of blurred. This part didn't require any acting talents. A tear slipped down her cheek. She was really and truly devastated about her title loss. The harsh reality of it was driven home by Natalya's music blaring in her ears and her opponent actually taking the time from celebrating her victory to grin down at her triumphantly for a couple of seconds. AJ wiped the tears from her face, but stayed were she was. There was no point in getting up. She had lost her title.

Now someone could say she was acting like a spoiled child and perhaps that was even true, but have you ever lost the WWE women's title? Well, have you? Having it meant the company was one hundred percent behind you. People believed in her talent, in her as a product. And what did losing it mean now? She didn't like the conclusions she came to. Had her act had gotten old too quick? Was AJ Lee not interesting enough for them anymore? Had she done something wrong?

She was not naturally self-confident. She was an insecure person acting like she was confident. Right now she was out of fake confidence. In fact she just wanted to cry. And so she did. She had a nice long cry right in the middle of the ring, which was also okay, because that was what the script said.

Someone leant over her and looked at her. At least one friendly face. Stephen... Erm, no, Sheamus, she corrected herself mentally.

Because Stephen would have never said the next words to her. They were far too harsh and insensitive. "Get up!" he told her in a loud and commanding voice, which didn't achieve the desired result. It only made her stare at him incredulously.

The Irishman sighed and bent down to pick her up from the ground and attempt to put her on her own two feet. She was still crying and sort of slumped forward and into his rather solid body. He grabbed her shoulders and held her away from his chest, at arm's length. "Get yerself together, lass an' stop wailing!" he chastised her.

April frowned. By now she had forgotten about the limelight and cameras directed at them. Why was Stephen being so mean, she asked herself quietly. She was looking at his face with a forlorn expression on hers.

He took a step closer to her, the look on his face was still stern, but his voice was soft and too low for the microphones to pick up. "Come on, April. Get yerself t'gether just a couple of more minutes an' we can get out of here."

April did everything in her willpower not to nod. Right now she didn't possess the strength to be AJ Lee. But then again luckily she didn't have to. She was allowed to be a crying, sobbing, hair-pulling mess.

Sheamus let out a sound of disgust and clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Yer makin' an embarrassment out of yerself. It's time we got out of here." With that he hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Natalya observed the scene with something akin to a sneer on her face as she held up April's title. No, correction! It was her title now.

April's fingers dug into the fabric at the back of Sheamus' shirt. "Hold on, dar'," he whispered to her. "Almost out of here." For once she was thankful, eternally thankful he was there and even felt a tiny bit remorseful because of the way she was clutching his shirt, her nails must have been digging into his skin. If that was the case, he didn't make a sound.

He carried her out of the ring, climbing gingerly over the toprope. He descended those three steps and they were walking up the ramp. Almost there, almost there, almost there, was the mantra she repeated with each step he took. Her humiliation was almost over. It was bad enough she got to stare at Natalya's triumphant face all the way out of the ring. She wanted to scream bloody murder and tell her to get her filthy paws of her belt. But she couldn't. It wasn't in the script and if she wanted to keep her job she'd better play along. So all she had left was a lot of pent up anger and frustration that couldn't be released and consequently came out as tears.

Finally, after an agonizing eternity, they were out of the limelight. Backstage. She had never been happier to be there. But he didn't put her down just yet. He carried her away from the commotion of the stage entrance, round a few corners, until they finally were in a deserted corridor. She felt his hands on her naked midriff, calloused and assertive, but still surprisingly gentle.

Mascara was running down her cheeks, she could tell because there was some black liquid on her hands when she wiped at her face with them. Either she was crying black tears now, which came straight from her black, black heart or her make-up didn't live up to the promise of being waterproof. She suspected the latter was true and lowered her head, so her hair would fan around her face and shield it from his gaze.

His hand touched the back of her head. A gesture of reassurance. She was starved for human contact right now. For anything - a hug, a few kind words... anything. Just a tiny smidgen of affection to help her deal with what had just happened and make her believe she was not an utter failure like the malicious voices in her head wanted to make her believe.

She edged closer to him and buried her head in his chest. It felt good, despite the fact that she could feel him tense. But she didn't let go, because it felt too damn good to feel the comforting warmth of another human body. Quite frankly, if his chest wasn't a chest to lean your head against while you wept she didn't know what was. Eventually, but sort of reluctantly she could feel him relax gradually. She could tell it happened because he placed his arms around her in a protective embrace and started to whisper reassurances to her.

"Shhh! Come on, luv, calm down. It's not the end of the world, you know. You'll get it back eventually. Just you wait." Had someone else told her to calm down and called her 'love' she would have clocked him over the head with a heavy blunt object, but the words were surprisingly okay coming from his mouth.

His hands were awkwardly patting her back. He was making an effort, so she made an effort to be not quite as pathetic and stifled the sob that was threatening to burst out of her.

"Do you really believe that or are you just trying to stop me from crying?" she asked through her blocked nose, looking up at him from her position, squished awkwardly against his pecks. A soggy, black stain had formed on his trademark Brogue Kick T-shirt right where she had rested her face. She rubbed at the spot with a grimace on her face.

He looked at her and that up close she could see his skin was slightly freckled and he had slight laughter lines around his eyes which got more prominent as his face briefly settled into a grin. "No worries about the shirt. I think I can get another one just like that no problem..."

"Yeah, I know," she said sort of darkly. She was pouting now, because he still hadn't answered her question.

"And just for the record, not that it counts anything right now, I think you didn't deserve to lose your title tonight," he told her, now completely sincere.

"Thank you," she said in a small voice, taking a step back now that she became aware of how close they were standing. The level of intimacy of being so bodily close to him was making her somewhat uncomfortable. It made her feel funny. Conflicted. Like she should bury her head in his chest again and listening to his consoling words some more.

His hands glided down her shoulders and brushed slightly over her naked arms. She shuddered. So strange! This evening was so strange and surreal. Suddenly she felt cold. Nothing to warm her but her supposedly oh-so cold heart now. She hugged herself, looked down at the tips of her Converse. This was a rare moment of feeling vulnerable, down and out for her. And he was there to witness it. It just wasn't right.

Her eyes were glittering when she looked up at him again. "You're not going to talk about this to anyone, are you? Not Galloway or Bennett or... well, anyone?"

"Why should I?" he asked in genuine surprise.

"Because this place is like a shark tank. So it all boils down to one question. Are you one of the sharks or something else?" she looked at him expectantly. She was distrustful and that rightly so. The rivalry between herself and the other women in the locker room wasn't just scripted. It had become real over the years because she just couldn't quite fit in. She was pretty enough, but her taste in music, in clothes, her way of talking, those unbidden words coming out of her mouth, they were just always a tiny bit off. Just a bit left-field. Like something subtly wrong about a situation. The i that wasn't dotted, the sentences that hung in the air unfinished...

"What's something else?" he wanted to know. His eyes narrowed in concentration and she could tell it was because he was trying to figure her out.

"A friend," she suggested. "You're either one of the sharks or you're a friend."

He took in her words, scrutinizing her face like he was trying to determine whether she was serious. "I'm not a shark," he said eventually.

"Maybe you just don't know yet you are one," she told him, full of distrust. Her nose was wrinkled, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Despite the smudged mascara under her eyes she still managed to convey an air or superiority. This business had taught her to be like that. She couldn't help it.

He made a thoughtful face. "I don't tink so. I'm quite happy te be left alone. I don't care fer other people's dirty laundry. There's only one reason I'm here: I want te wrestle. Plain an' simple..."

"That's the same reason I'm here for. I just wanna do this job. And I wanna do it well... But maybe that's not enough. Maybe I should try to be more like what's expected of me. Like them..." The fight was draining out of her now. She hung her head again. Thinking that her best was probably not good enough would discourage just about anyone.

"What do you think is expected of you?" he asked calmly, giving her the opportunity to voice her inner turmoil by taking the part of the patient listener for now.

"Be quiet, suck it up, just look pretty and smile into the camera, don't talk back, stuff like that basically. Stuff I can't do." She let out a contemptuous huff. "But who am I talking to? You got it easy."

"Easy?!" he echoed. The fact that he raised his voice made her look at him in surprise. "Lass, clearly ya have gotten the definition of easy all wrong in yer head. I mean, take a good long hard look...," she didn't follow his invitation immediately, so he surprised her by being more temperamental than usual and grabbing her chin with his hand. "No, really! Take a look! Do I bloody look like feckin' John Cena te ya? Or maybe like the Rock?"

She shook her head almost automatically.

"Ya got that right, lass. I'm a pasty ginger from Ireland. An' ever since I've stepped me foot off the plane I've been hearin' those bleedin' mayonnaise jokes from the other fellas all the time. That is until I kick their arses in the ring an' make them shut up because there is no way I'll let them get me down." He let go of her chin and although she would have been free to look away now, she didn't. Her eyes stayed glued to his face.

She held out her hand to him eventually after they had spent a couple of seconds staring at each other awkwardly. They both gradually became aware of having revealed much more about themselves than they had probably intended to. April decided to see that as a good thing, which didn't mean she couldn't still be embarrassed about what had transpired between them afterwards. Still she bravely held out his hand to him.

"This is a one-time offer, so take it or leave it," she thought the situation to be clear enough, so she didn't have to elaborate what that offer was. She was offering her friendship to him, because what other choice was there for two oddballs like them?

"Shaking yer hand?" he raised an eyebrow. She knew he was feigning ignorance on purpose. She might as well go all the way now.

"I'm offering you my friendship, you dolt," she rolled her eyes. "Might I add that I really don't like your sense of humor?"

"Why'd you want to be me friend then?"

"Cause I think you're an okay guy?"

"Is that all ya got? I've just let ya cry into me favourite shirt fer half an hour..."

She could tell he was teasing her now and it made her angry.

"If you want someone to suck up to you...," she narrowed her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, save it," he waved her off. "We can be mates, April. Don't get yer knickers in a bunch over it." He clasped her hands and gave her shoulder a pat.

* * *

"AJ, you stupid bitch, you suck! Natalya rules!" someone screamed after her as she left the arena. She had been fine up until that point. Funny how sobbing into someone's T-shirt for about 5 minutes or so takes away that first and more acute ache that comes with losing your title to one of your most bitter rivals. Now, however, she felt increasingly vulnerable again because she gradually became aware what losing that belt really meant. It was the most prestigious title in the women's division. Winning it was a boost to anyone's career, well, and guess what losing it meant: the opposite, in case you were wondering.

Luck had it that just in that very moment she hopped onto the bus climbed up the stairs to reach its middle aisle, that nice little offensive yell reached her ears. As a consequence her face contorted into a grimace just as it became fully visible after she had ascended the stairs. Up there, the welcome was just as frosty as it had been out on the street. The malicious smirk of Brie Bella greeted her and made her switch into defensive mood instantly. Unfortunately it was too late to hide the fact that the fan's rude yell had gotten to her. That much was clear thanks to the crestfallen look on her face.

"Isn't the world a beautiful place? Just once in a while everyone gets their just desserts," the beautiful brunette grinned at April maliciously. For once her equally obnoxious twin was nowhere in sight, not that that would have intimidated April.

Normally she tried to be nice to people, but when someone got on her bad side she would channel right into that slightly more sarcastic and bitchy part of her personality. And the Bellas did get on her bad side repeatedly. They were nice enough people, but in their world good looks and superficialities played too big a role for April's taste. What she valued more than looks was character, skills and a good work ethic. She had gotten to where she was right now by busting her ass and she didn't think the same could be said for the twins. They were here because the camera loved them and not because they were the best in the ring. That was exactly why she despised them. She generally despised people who got everything handed to them just because they looked a certain way or were friends with certain people. But that wasn't the Bellas' fault really. It was the world that was an unfair place and sometimes April hated living in it, like right about now.

April carefully schooled her features into an impassive mask before she responded. "I rarely agree with you, but I can hardly wait until you get yours." In order to tick Brie off even more she flashed her an additional grin that was as far away from sweet as humanly possible. Actually it was downright mean.

Brie's beautiful face turned into an angry grimace and she automatically edged a little closer, as her voice lowered to a hiss that sounded suspiciously like the warning sounds a snake makes right before attacking. "You listen good, April..."

She never got to finish her threat as Phil's head popped up next to April's in the aisle. He made a show out of looking around sheepishly like a deep sea diver having emerged from the ocean to find himself in an unknown and hostile waters. There was no one on the bus except for the three of them. It was still early and the others would pour in a couple of minutes. "Oooh, sorry! Is this _Mean Girls: The Reckoning_? Am I interrupting something?" Phil drawled sarcastically, "I only caught the last thing you've said, but it sounded like you're dying for some cheap drama like on you show. Isn't that right, Brie? Or maybe you want to get on a slightly more high-class and intellectual program like Jerry Springer?"

"This isn't about you, Phil," Brie said in a tightly clipped and very, very controlled voice that indicated that she was about to burst with anger.

"So what is this about then? It's always good to have a vague idea of what you want in life," at that he shot her a shit eating grin. "Take this situation for example. Keep spreading your negative bullshit and you'll get the tongue lashing of a lifetime," he stretched out one hand and held it like he was weighing that particular option in it. A similar gesture, just with his other arm, accompanied his next words. "Shut up and try to be civil and all of us will get through this bus ride just fine. Personally I kind of like option one, cause I lost against Ryback tonight and you know how that makes me feel..."

Brie's jaw shut tight. It wasn't a clever move getting into a verbal argument with the likes of Phil Brooks, king of the pipe bomb. Judging by the disgruntled and somewhat defeated expression on Brie's face as she stepped aside to let them pass, she knew that.

They headed down the aisle to get out of Brie's hearing range. After a few steps they stopped abruptly. Phil turned around to her. "Hey, April!" he said casually, as if the exchanged with Brie had already slipped from his mind. "Wanna sit with me in the back today?" When Phil asked stuff like that, the guy who usually sat there slouched in his seat, hood down, with angry, loud punk music blaring away on his headphones and his nose stuck in some sort of comic book, you said yes, especially when your name was April Mendez.

They reached the back row and April produced the latest Batman issue from her bag after she had plonked down next to Phil. A few seconds later they had their respective headphones on, so the rest of the world could go and kiss their behinds. The trouble was that April got distracted over and over again from her comic by feeling sorry for herself. She promptly got angry each time she caught herself staring blankly at a page with the events of tonight replaying in her head.

April's lovely little sulking session was briefly interrupted by a chocolate bar landing in her lap. It had very nearly missed her head and made her almost jump out of seat in surprise and anger. Her eyes fell on the toothy, pearly-white grin of Nick Nemeth and took in his hand gesture, he tapped his index finger and middle finger against his right temple in a mock military salute. It made her smile briefly and her irritation faded away as quickly as it had come. She forced herself to make that smile on her face appear even bigger and mouthed the word "thanks". After a couple of seconds, though, her gaze strayed from his face almost automatically.

A few rows away she saw Celeste's blonde and black hair peek out from between the seats. Who was that next to her? Big E? April grinned. For some reason them sitting together made her happy. Probably because that storyline from creative about Big E having been egged on by AJ to pretend like he was Kaitlyn's secret admirer and mock her, had ultimately led to those two becoming friends. If that wasn't ironic, she didn't know what was...

Further down the aisle, practically next to the front entrance she saw a patch of red hair. Steve. Knowing that he was sitting there was somewhat reassuring. She was brought back to the presence by Phil nudging her knee with his. By now Nick had disappeared, so she looked at Phil and saw him pointing at a particular page of his Deadpool mega-issue with a crooked grin. She leaned closer and let her eyes flit over the speech bubbles on the page. "First thing I'll do, Keanu, is grab Sandra Bullock and hightail it off the bus..."

"A bit 90's, don't cha think?" she raised her left eyebrow and threw him a look.

"Come on, don't be like that," Phil shook his head in mock disapproval. "Just imagine, you're Sandra and I'm Keanu and Brie's that nasty bomb we have to defuse..."

He was trying deliberately to cheer her up, so basically hell would freeze over soon any second now. She made a face. "Sandra's cool. Just don't expect more kissing from me. Your beard's yucky. You should trim it. It makes you look like a bum."

"A bum that could potentially pull a lot of chicks," his eyebrows practically disappeared into where she supposed his hairline was which she couldn't see because it was hidden underneath his hoodie. In order to keep the worst from happening, as in a disgruntled Punk, she pro-actively tried to quench any sort of protest by offering her chocolate bar to him. He shook his head. There went her distraction.

"Sorry, can't bribe me with chocolate. I'm completely untouchable. Like Eliot Ness," he told her and crossed his arms over his chest. "Nice try though," he added with an ironic smirk. "Totally predictable, but nice."

"Just sayin'," she shrugged her shoulders casually. "At least I tell you stuff like that... Or would you rather have me kissing your ass like those other sycophants?"

"No." He narrowed his eyes. "And I'll let that slide because of what you've been through today, Aps."

"Jeez, really gracious of you. Thanks," she drawled in a sarcastic tone of voice and got back to reading her comic. Phil did the same after a couple of seconds. They were both smirking to themselves. That was how their friendship worked. A bit of sarcasm mixed with a few niceties that were however far and in between, but that was okay really. It was comfortable.

Upon thinking that last adjective she had to look up from her reading inevitably. Her eyes focused on that red patch of hair again in the first row.

So how would he behave around her now that she had sobbed into his T-shirt for 5 minutes straight? She hadn't fallen apart like that in front of anyone in a good long while. She wondered what that meant. Was it that he made her feel comfortable? Was that it? Did he really?

Those thoughts occupied her for the rest of the bus ride and required for Phil to actually tap her on the shoulder to get her to leave her seat when they had arrived at their destination.

They got off the bus and while walking back to the hotel, Phil asked her casually what she had been thinking about. After all he was entitled to that question, having spent half an hour sitting next to her while she was sulking away like there was no tomorrow.

She just shook her head. Her problems with Steve were for her to figure out, so she decided to tell him about one of those other thoughts that were rattling around in her head. "Don't you sometimes wish you could ditch this whole place just for one day?"

"Please, don't we all sometimes," Phil scoffed and tugged a little at the strap of his duffel bag to adjust it on his shoulder.

* * *

Stephen didn't make a habit out of overhearing people's conversations. He just happened to be milling around in front of the bus waiting for April. He had engaged in some small talk with Drew Galloway, one of his best mates, while he was waiting for her to get off the bus. All he had wanted to do was reassure her again that her crying in front of him didn't have to lead to any awkwardness between them really. He had come to the conclusion that that was necessary because of all the slightly embarrassed looks she had been shooting him since then, so really having a talk with her seemed like the only logical and sensible thing to do at this point.

Just as soon as he had seen her step off the bus, he left a confused Drew behind with the words "Sorry, mate!" and took off after her. Unfortunately she had been with Phil and he hadn't wanted to intrude on their conversation, so that talk between the two of them never actually occurred. What did happen, was that he had been walking behind them, waiting for the right moment to talk to her, which lead to him overhearing the part of their conversation in which April confessed she wanted nothing more than to take a 24-hour-break from the WWE.

Lord, he could he relate to that! And how! That was probably why her words had been stuck in his head for hours now.

Missing out on months of action due to an injury had sucked, but it had taught him one valuable lesson. No, make that two! He wasn't invincible. Actually far from it. Funny how easily a bone could break. Injuries happened fast, in the blink of an eye. That blink of an eye can alter careers. It can sometimes even mean a fatal accident. So what he had learned was what? Life was short maybe? Yeah, that had to be it.

The other thing was... Well, an even more clichéd thing to say out loud than "Life is short". After all that sort of advice wasn't really an eye opener. It came printed on so many of those tacky office posters that were covered in impressive landscapes and motivational slogans; it was safe to assume someone other than him had come to this conclusion before. Still, it was important to him, because he finally got that there was more to those words than just a platitude. The message was a valuable lesson. A lesson only life can teach you and make you fully understand.

His other life-altering epiphany was equally unspectacular and unoriginal: Life is what happens outside of work. Being locked in that tight schedule of working for the WWE, it was hard to imagine there was something besides wrestling, media work and lifting weights. But there was. There was a whole world out there, filled with people who had much more important things to do than being athletic and watching their diet. People who saved lives, ended wars, taught young children. Those thoughts really humbled him and made the importance of what he was doing pale in comparison.

So taking a leaf out of his own book, after having spent an entire night thinking about just taking off for 24 hours with a cheeky "feck you" on his lips, a grin on his face and April as his sidekick, he found himself knocking at her door the next morning. It was 8 o'clock. Round about the time he usually saw her down at breakfast. Hopefully she was still in her room.

After a couple of knocks the door swung open and revealed a disgruntled April who looked at him sort of disbelievingly. He could practically see the following thoughts rattling around in her head: "What is he doing here?", "Does he have any idea how early it is?", "Why is he wearing sunglasses at 8am inside a hotel corridor?" He took off those sunglasses sort of sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. They had looked like a nifty accessory to his get-away plan. It occurred to him only now that apart from the eye wear he really hadn't thought this through.

"What do you want?" she asked sort of gruffly which wasn't really encouraging all things considered.

He squared his shoulders and stuck out his chin, being oddly reminded of school and how his teacher, the woman would have made a passable McGonagall lookalike by the way, had always made him squirm out there next to the blackboard under her unrelenting gaze. April did really have that look of disapproval down to scratch. Maybe it was those glasses.

"I've never been to Lake Tahoe," he blurted out sort of abruptly.


	6. Lake Tahoe

**Author's note:**_Hi, there! Thank you for favouriting and following this story and generally for sticking with me. So last update before Christmas. Hope you're going to have a good one! Let me know what you think about this chapter. Feedback is very much appreciated! _

* * *

"I've never been to Lake Tahoe," he blurted out sort of abruptly.

She gave him an odd look. "Yeah... Sorry, to hear that."

"It's just a two hour drive from here," he told her and she suddenly noticed that incidentally he was holding the keys to a car in his hand.

"So... erm... What are you trying to say here?" she decided to go out on a total limb and ask the most implausible thing that popped into her head first. "You wanna go to Lake Tahoe now?"

There was that crazy smile on his face she only knew from the ring and it had her moderately worried. Correction, make that really worried.

"Yeah, how about that?"

She took a couple of seconds to look at him with her mouth hanging open. Was he crazy? They couldn't just bail on everything and everyone for one day to do something crazy like hopping inside a car and taking a drive down to Lake Tahoe, could they? They had obligations and stuff and... Funny, how she actually used the word stuff in her head. It was a sign that she was running out of arguments why they shouldn't just make Stephen's wacky plan happen.

"Erm... I don't know," she said, nervously looking down at her bare feet first, then at his face again.

"Can I come in?" he asked abruptly.

"Yeah, sure...," she said awkwardly, not really sure she wanted him to see the mess that was her room. Her belongings were spilling over the edges of her suitcase and taking over the room. T-shirts strewn all over her bed, Batman, CM Punk, Green Lantern... A stack of autograph cards on the bedside table she had signed before going to bed, two plastic ponies, her wristbands around their necks like oversized necklaces, a couple of comic books in between her T-shirts. As his eyes travelled over the mess that was her hotel room, she couldn't help but cringe.

He actually had the cheek to grin at her and mutter something like "That explains why yer always late fer the bus..."

His comment did nothing to improve her mood. She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot in a very AJ Lee like fashion. "You wanted to convince me of your crazy plan..."

"Do ya honestly still need convincin'?" he asked, losing his grin as he shot her a look that was actually closer to preoccupied than cocky.

She hesitated to answer. Oh, what good was playing mysterious now?! It was time to admit he had had her at the word 'two-hour-drive'. Because, honestly how far was that compared to the hundreds of miles they travelled each week? "No, not really," she shot him a shy smile. The way her voice rose at the end of the sentence and she was wringing her hands showed that she was nervous about admitting that.

"So how do we pull this off?" April wanted to know, finally asking the question that had been burning under her nails from the get-go.

"Erm... Well, we lie of course," he suggested. He didn't say it in a booming or confident voice, rather like someone aware of suggesting something he wasn't supposed to do. It made her remember something from a conversation with her friend Kaitlyn. Hadn't she said Stephen was usually very reliable and driven? No wonder suggesting something like that made him feel uncomfortable.

"But you don't wanna lie?" she asked promptly.

He narrowed his eyes at her. Broad daylight was streaming in through the windows and she noticed how his eyelashes were almost white. "Can you name someone who likes lying? No one likes lying. Well, apart from people who are all messed up in the noggin."

April shrugged non-committally. "I'm only doing this if you go first," she said abruptly, surprising the both of them with her sudden willingness to go through with this. What had come over her all of a sudden? It was probably the added incentive of having to lie to get their will that had her agreeing. It gave the whole plan a certain mystery and made it seem like they were doing something utterly forbidden and dangerous. And let's face it, forbidden wasn't usually an integral part of her daily routine. She got up early, worked out and did as she was told which mainly consisted in shaking hands, smiling and signing things. It was the same routine every day. A routine she loved and had consciously chosen to be her life, but right now she needed a break from it, even if it was just for a day.

"Okay," he sighed. "Fine. I'll do it." He got out his cell phone and pressed a number on speed dial, probably his agent's. "Yeah. Hi, fella! It's Steve... Yeah, about today... Erm... Yeah, well, I'm not feeling so hot," he actually blushed a little when he said that. "Yeah... A pity... Yeah. What can you do?" He rolled his eyes at her as he pressed the phone against his ear while his agent droned on, apparently determined to chew off said part of his body. "Well, good thing we don't have any media this afternoon, ey?" he chuckled nervously. A couple of more 'yeah' and he was done.

"There, happy now?" he asked after he had ended the call.

"Not really. You're an appalling liar," she said and got out her own cell phone, determined to show him how it was done. She started the call with the fake cough and ended it by putting a pathetic quiver into her voice to make it sound weak and somewhat sickly as she said her goodbyes. All in all she was happy with her work in the end. She had delivered a true masterpiece.

"You're scary," he told her with a frown after the call had ended.

"Not really. I just sucked at maths back in high school, so I had to learn how to get myself a little extra time to study before tests," April explained. "So when are we going to leave?" She asked abruptly, trying to get the conversation away from her academic failures as fast as possible.

"Not so fast! Aren't ya forgettin' somethin'? We need to switch off these things first," he waved his cell phone at her and dramatically pressed the power button. The light of screen quickly faded out. "Ya know that if we leave them on, one of us will eventually succumb te weakness an' do somethin' work related."

She looked at her cell phone doubtfully.

"Come on," he encouraged her.

"Oh, all right. What the heck...," she quickly pressed the power button and switched her own cell phone off too. "There. Happy now?"

He just shrugged his shoulders non-committally. "Ready to leave?"

She pointedly looked down at her naked feet and wiggled her toes on the carpet for emphasise. There was dark green nail polish on her toe nails. He had to smile a little at her eccentricity and also because she had inadvertently chosen a colour that went just fine with his ring gear.

"Just give me five minutes and I'll be good to go, okay?"

* * *

Lake Tahoe. She tried to remember if she had ever been there and came up empty-handed, which meant either that she had been there before and it had been a complete waste of time or that this would be the first time she went.

"Soooo, that fantastic plan of yours, does it also include any ideas of what we're going to do once we get there?" she asked turning her upper body away from the window and towards him to shoot him a sceptical look from the passenger seat.

"Nah," he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "I figured I'll just let things evolve..."

"Which is code for you haven't got the slightest, isn't that right?" April grinned at him with just a hint of condescension and adjusted her glasses on her little stub nose. "Well, you better think fast, genius. Only 5 more miles to go and I get bored quickly."

"Are ya always that bossy? I thought ya were a sweet lass...," he shot her a brief sideways glance before he refocused back on the road.

"Well, you thought wrong. Appearances can be deceiving," she informed him with a grin.

"Yeah, I get that now. Good job making me believe you were nice... "

"Thanks, I appreciate it," she did a little mock bow gesture with her hands.

He sighed, but looking at his profile she could see the laughter lines around his eyes that were somewhat hidden under the shadow of his flat cap. He sure loved wearing those caps. What was it about them anyway? His voice brought her out of her thoughts about head wear and his flat cap fetish.

"So how about a stroll along the shore?" he suggested.

She just raised an eyebrow. "A stroll? Around Lake Tahoe?" The pause in between sentences and the tone of her voice made quite clear what she thought of that idea. She sounded less than thrilled.

"Yeah, why not? Aren't we taking this trip in order to relax and get away from people...?"

"We are. Erm, Steve? No offence, but your idea of relaxation sounds like that of a 40-year-old woman," she mocked.

"A 40-year-old woman?!" he shook his head and muttered something under his breath she couldn't quite discern. "Fine let's hear it, April. What do you do to relax? I'm guessing a bunch of manly stuff. Like beatin' yer chest, smearing dirt on yer face an' swingin' from tree te tree? Mmmmmmh," he made a thoughtful face, "Wait a second, would ya? Now why does that sound familiar?" He paused for effect. "I know!" that triumphant exclamation couldn't do without the mandatory smug grin. "'Cause I did all those things minus the swingin' from a tree bit fer a promo once... See if ya can round up any birds in their 40s who like doing that, would ya?"

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down! It almost sounds like I hit a nerve there," she threw him a saccharine smile, which escaped his notice because he had his eyes on the road. The teasing tone of her voice however didn't.

"It's too late te stop an' ask ya te get out of the car, right?" he shot back.

"And leave me in the middle of nowhere? What if a big, mean old bear comes along and eats me?" she made her voice sound exaggeratedly innocent and sweet like that of a cartoon character. "Wouldn't you just hate yourself for being responsible for the death of someone so cute and nice...?"

"The bear would die if it ate ya? Yeah, that would be a pity," he said dryly.

For the first time ever since she knew him he had made a joke she found funny. Surprisingly it was a sarcastic remark about herself that had her grinning, which unfortunately escaped his notice or else he would have later been able to exactly pinpoint the moment April Jeanette Mendez truly started liking him.

"All right. All right. You know what, Steve? We'll give that stroll thing a try. But if it's as booooring as it sounds, I promise to fall asleep while I'm walking and you'll have to carry me back."

"I sense a recurring theme there..."

"Recurring theme?"

"As in me havin' te carry ya everywhere?"

"Oh, that! I don't mind that," she smiled. Actually there were worse things than being carried around by him.

"Well, I do."

"Why? Can't be because I'm too heavy, can it? You lug around up to twice my weight at the gym."

He put the car into park and looked at her. It only occurred to her in this very moment that they must have driven the remaining 5 miles by now. They were currently standing on a gravel covered, deserted parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Right in front of the car there was a big wooden sign that advertised the beauties of Lake Tahoe to them and invited them to get out of their car and experience them first hand. But that sign momentarily lost importance. Under the scrutiny of his piercing blue eyes she forgot all about it.

"Because, luv, at some point people will stop referring te me as the Celtic Warrior an' start calling me the Irish bloke who carries around AJ Lee all the time. Doesn't sound too tempting if ya ask me..."

"I doubt that's ever going to happen. You're far too good a wrestler for that," she smiled at him and patted his shoulder.

He blinked a couple of times in surprise. Wait a second had she just complimented him? He waited for her to say a few joking words in an afterthought and waited completely in vain. She seemed to really mean it.

"Thanks, I guess," he answered and tugged at his cap trying to pull it lower into his face. Her words had somewhat flustered him and sometimes his face would flush when he got flustered or experienced some minor emotional upheaval. Apart from pulling the cap into his face, getting out of the car was another method to gloss over that awkward moment and so he practically jumped out of the vehicle. He could hear her door slam shut as well.

The air was humid and mist was hanging in the treetops. Both of them automatically wrapped their jackets a little tighter around themselves.

"So down that path?" April indicated a path that led away from the parking lot and straight into the forest.

"Yep, if the sign is to be believed, then that's the direction the lake is in," he answered.

They started walking. For once without making any conversation. They had already talked enough in the car for the silence not to feel awkward now. After a good five minutes or so they eventually reached the lake shore. Judging by all the appreciative 'oh' and 'ah' sounds April was making, she seemed to like the view.

"Steve?"

"What is it, luv?"

"I wanna take a picture of us and the lake."

"So?"

"I need to switch my phone on for that," she looked at him with an expression that clearly said "d'uh".

"Go ahead then! Ya won't have any reception out here anyway," he shrugged his shoulders. They were headed towards a spot near the lake shore where a big log was lying on the ground. Doubtlessly it had been dragged there by someone who came here regularly and wanted to have a makeshift bench from which he or she could appreciate the panorama of the lake while sitting down.

Without any hesitation April climbed on top of the log already brandishing her cell phone in one hand. He had noticed how she was growing less and less shy around him and that trend seemed to continue now. She pulled him close, grabbing his jacket like he was an over-sized teddy-bear and positioned him next to her, so that you could see their faces and the waterfront behind them in the picture.

"Say cheeeeeeeeeese," she said exaggeratedly and he had to laugh a little at her enthusiasm and silliness. The resulting picture appeared briefly on display of the phone, but she quickly took another one and another.

Her cheek was mere inches from being pressed against his and her sweet and powdery perfume that always reminded him of the smell of candy floss or chewing gum was tickling his nostrils. Standing so close to her could have been uncomfortable, and for all intents and purposes it probably should have been if you took into consideration that she was invading his space, except that for some reason it wasn't, which surprised him.

"Okay," she flashed him a bright and really toothy grin and lowered the cell phone again. She looked down and apparently came to the conclusion that the log was a good place to sit down on, because seconds later she made herself comfortable on it. With a casual hand gesture, she patted the empty space beside her and invited him to sit down as well.

So they just sat there for a while without saying a word and stared at the waterfront. Mist was hanging over it. Occasionally a bird would land on the water and make its surface ripple. It was really quiet except for the sound of the trees moving in the breeze and some bird and animal sounds here and there, which was really relaxing because usually their days consisted of noise and chaos. Stephen closed his eyes and took a deep breath, which made April turn her head in his direction.

The peaceful look on his face made her smile. His legs were stretched out before him and he had crossed them at the ankles. Hers were stretched out in the same fashion beside his. Just that they were much shorter.

For some reason she now felt extremely glad he had sprung that crazy idea on her. Being out here just felt right. It slowed everything down and put a few things into perspective. The travelling circus that was the WWE seemed so far away now and so comparatively unimportant in comparison to the things that really mattered in life: friends, family, being happy about the little things...

She touched his hand that was casually resting on the log beside hers. Her fingers briefly squeezed his and ghosted over the back of his hand when she let go again. "Thank you for having that idea. Doesn't seem so crazy any more, now that we're here."

"Yer welcome," he opened his eyes and smiled at her with an endearingly lopsided smile on his lips. Was that a dimple? Did he have dimples? She liked them a lot. Her dad had them too and she had always tried to make them come out as a child. Making her dad laugh had been some sort of sport to her. So with her love for dimples and thanks to those fond memories she couldn't help but wonder whether she would end up always wanting to make Steve laugh as well because of them.

"So how about that stroll now?" he asked and mercifully brought her out of those strange musings.

She nodded and stood up. Oddly enough that sounded like a good idea now.

* * *

"The feckin' car won't feckin' start," he stated the obvious after he had twisted the key in the ignition for the upteenth time and the engine had emitted another one of those discouraging tac-tac-tac noises that sounded like a bird pecking on a window pane.

"What do you think is wrong with the car?" she asked, trying to keep calm for now.

"Something with the battery," he announced in a grave tone of voice. The verdict seemed to be final.

"Seriously?"

He nodded.

"No! Noooo! Come on! You gotta be kidding me!" April looked up at the ceiling of the car in disbelief. Come on, world! No intervention of some higher power? Nothing? They were screwed. April lowered her forehead to the dashboard and rested it against the back of her hands. "Stupid car! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Her hands were balled to fists now and emphasising each of those "stupid"s by hitting the dashboard. He stopped her with a concerned frown on his face.

She looked up at him in confusion when his hand closed around her wrist.

"Yer gonna trigger the passenger air-bag if ya keep hittin' the dashboard," he explained calmly.

"Screw the air-bag! Are you aware that we don't even have cell phone reception out here? Not a single bar. How are we supposed to call for help? Make a signal fire?"

He made a face. It was clear that those things only just occurred to him now that she had brought them up. He had been too focused on the problem of the car not wanting to start before. "Feck!"

"Right," she said dryly.

Eventually after some more swearing they got out of the car. They decided to walk back down the road, because April thought she remembered seeing a petrol station/truck stop a couple of miles down the road. Surely they would have a phone there.

Both their mood had hit rock bottom by now, but it soon became clear that between the two of them Stephen seemed to be the one less prone to sulking. After roughly two miles of walking, he broke the terse silence that had so far prevented any further attempts of conversation.

"What about yer cell phone? Any change?"

She pulled it out of her leather jacket and eyed it critically. "Nah-ah. Useless."

He only noticed that her mobile came with a Batman case now and discretely hid his grin behind his hand brushing over his beard. She'd eat his head off if he made a comment now.

"It's getting dark," she growled.

"Yeah, I've noticed," he said with a hint of concern in his voice.

"I'm cold," she added in an accusatory tone of voice.

"I'm sorry," he said almost automatically. "I'd offer ya me jacket, but it's too cold fer me te be walkin' around in just a shirt..."

"Great... Just great," she said and kicked at a pebble that was lying in front of her on the road. That way she could at least channel some of her frustration in a productive way.

She heard him unzip his jacket and looked at him in surprise. She hadn't thought she could sucker him into surrendering it to her by a mere display of temper. It soon turned out, however, that that wasn't the case after all.

"Come on," he motioned her to get closer and she followed his invitation with a certain shyness and a frown on her face. He laid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side with a gruff "Don't be a bleedin' idiot, April!" She knew better than to make a retort now and tugged one half of his open jacket around herself as she snuggled against his side.

"Ya breath a word of this te anyone, I'm going to feckin' skin ya alive, lass," he growled and continued walking, but despite his angry words, slowly enough for her to match his steps with her shorter legs.

"Why would I want to regale anyone with the glorious exploits of today?"

"Come on now, ya got to admit, up until the battery decided te kick the bucket everythin' went fine," he protested and gave her shoulders a squeeze for emphasis.

"Yeah. Right. Fine. Whatever...," she rolled her eyes and had to squint them when they were both blinded by the headlights of an approaching car.

"You guys need a lift?" the driver called out to them after the car had pulled to a stop beside them and he had lowered the window.

April was beaming. "Hi! Yeah, that would be great." Gone was her bad mood and replaced by an odd bout of cheerfulness.

"So where to?" the man asked. He was middle-aged, wearing a flannel shirt and his outward appearance strangely reminded April of an aged version of the character Al Borland from _Home Improvement._

"Good question," Steve scratched his head. "Our car battery died..."

"I could give you a lift back to your car and we could try to jump start it," Al Borland 2 suggested.

"What if that doesn't work?" April decided to ask.

The man could only shrug helplessly in reply. "I could drive you over to _Amy's_ instead. It's a bar by the side of the road a few miles back. You could call your auto-mobile club or someone else to get you from there."

"Sounds good," April nodded.

Roughly 10 minutes later their benefactor pulled to a stop in front of the bar called _Amy's_. A couple of cars were parked out front. The place seemed to be quite popular with people from the area. It wasn't even that dingy, which was a plus. They thanked the man profusely and entered the bar. Stephen hit the phone straight away and April was sent off with the orders to get them QUOTE a beer and be quick about it UNQUOTE.

She was sitting at a table, studying the menu, a pitcher of beer and two glasses already standing on the table, when Stephen slipped into the chair opposite of her with a sigh and the smile of someone who had just accomplished a major feat on his face.

"Ok, talk, Mr Cheshire Cat! Is someone going to come and rescue us or are we going to miss Smackdown tomorrow?" she poured him a glass of beer, raising the pitcher with one steady hand, without spilling a single drop of the golden liquid inside.

"It's all been settled," he took a sip of his beer and let out a long drawn "aaaaaah" sound of approval. "They're gonna send over a car that's gonna take us back te Sacramento. It should be here in roughly an hour."

"What about the car?"

"Gonna be towed. Not our fault. They've been awfully apologetic about that. They even promised to reimburse me. Not bad, ey?" His eyes fell on the open menu she was resting her arms on. "Anything good in there? I'm starved. I could probably eat me way through this whole thing." He tapped his index fingers at the corner of the menu for emphasis.

Her answer was drowned out by a loud, shrill and above all high-pitched female cry coming from the general area of the entrance of the bar. It seemed to make all men freeze in shock at the same exact moment. A couple of women, dressed in cowgirl outfits and multicoloured feather boas, entered the place. The words "They're out on a bachelorette party" were totally superfluous at this point, because no self-respecting woman would ever leave the house dressed like that if it wasn't in order to spend her last night of freedom with her girlfriends.

April only had to look briefly over her shoulder to assess the situation correctly. Yup, definitely a bachelorette party. Her eyes settled back on Stephen who was sitting opposite of her. His face displayed an expression of utter horror.

"Feck! Go way outta that! Haven't I been through enough today already?" he cursed and subconsciously ducked in his chair, which was quite a funny thing to do for a man of his stature. It wasn't like he could hide or look inconspicuous. Pulling his flat cap further into his face wouldn't help him either. Well, she had to give him that; at least it would hide his flaming red hair that would have probably attracted the ladies' attention right away.

"Anything wrong?" she asked with a sardonic grin.

"Yeah," he scooted closer to her with a nervous look on his face, but still took another sip of his beer, probably to calm his nerves, "it's a bleedin' hen's night. Ya've got te help a fella out, luv. After everythin' that's happened today, I'm not sure I can stomach a hen's night." He said the words 'hen's night' like they involved something gruesome like a guillotine or hours of doing your tax calculations.

"Oh, come on! You're exaggerating. What's the worst that could happen?"

Her question was answered by a drunken cajoling noise coming from the general direction of the bar. It sounded like the cries of a pack of coyotes in heat and made April cringe. "Okay, that could happen..."

He nodded emphatically. "Women get all sorts of bolloxed up at those sort of things an' then they think every single man that crosses their path is there fer their amusement... Like a stripper or a kissogram or some other shite," he growled ill-humouredly, but still kept his voice low. "Please, dar', I'm not askin' fer much...," he said with a certain urgency and looked around with the air of someone being chased by the devil incarnate. Unfortunately he never got to finish his plea for help. It was too late. His eyes widened as they landed on a pair of glittering red cowboy boots coming to stand next to their table. Dun-dun-da-ha! It was Bride-zilla.

"Heeeeey, girls! Over here! I've got one!" she squealed in an obnoxiously loud and squeaky voice that instantly grated on April's nerves. The woman was spray tanned, you could tell because she was orange and April had already seen a lot of bad spray-tan jobs in her time as a wrestler. She had platinum blonde hair and all in all looked very much like Barbie.

The stampede of bridesmaids arrived at their table and made April feel slightly claustrophobic. She inched closer to Stephen protectively, remembering that his displeasure with the situation was probably greater than hers. So basically, even though she wasn't in the boy-scouts, this would be her one good deed for today.

"Sorry, to spoil the fun girls. I'm afraid you haven't got one," she informed them with a condescending smile (even though she felt more nervous and awkward than anything else really) and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. "He can't come and play. He's already taken." She put her hand on top of Stephen's possessively who managed to look both thankful and relieved at the same time.

But maybe his relief was a bit premature at this point. Bride-zilla was very persistent. "We'd just borrow him for a couple of seconds. He'd just have to...," without a doubt she was about to embark on an inane explanation of some silly and humiliating game her friends had designed for her on the special occasion of her bachelorette party, but April cut her off with a hand gesture before she could finish the sentence.

The situation was still rather uncomfortable and could quickly get fishy, so April looked around to regard Bride-zilla's friends more closely, trying to figure out whether they would give her any trouble. They seemed to have either fallen into the same enormous pot of spray-tan Bride-zilla had had the misfortune to end up in or they were such close friends they simply had do everything she did just because she was the leader of the pack. So basically they were a bunch of harmless sheep. Inebriated, but harmless. The one over there, wearing a police uniform, complete with handcuffs and everything, seemed to have had one drink too many. She was barely able to keep herself upright any more. April would have to look out for that one.

"Come on!" the girls called out and tried to sway April's decision in their favour.

"I'm sorry, but no. Would you please back off? I get jealous. Like insanely jealous. You wouldn't like me when I'm jealous," she added, stealing that particular quote from the Hulk and modifying it for her purposes, probably without any of those ladies being any the wiser. The maniacal AJ-esque smile she carefully flashed them would probably do the rest.

Indeed it looked like it did the trick, that was until one of the girls started to whisper something like: "Wait, I think I know her..."

April rolled her eyes and waited for the dime to drop. She felt Stephen's hand curl up in a nervous twitch underneath hers.

"Aren't you guys AJ Lee and Sheamus from the WWE?" the same girl spoke up now, only more excitedly. "You two are together?!" she practically squealed.

April thought of her friend Phil and how he would have snapped in a situation like this. She looked at Steve. He looked uncomfortable, but comparatively calm. What to do now? He stayed calm. So far so good. But where they supposed to say now? Thanks to them being teamed up, the whole world would sooner or later start believing that they had something going, so why not lie to the girls? At least they would leave Steve alone after that, right?

"We were jus' sharin' a drink in privacy," Steve gave them a friendly wink, though the invitation to leave was implied in his words. He had been quicker to answer than her and that was probably for the better anyway. She would have been considerably less tactful. His remark contained a certain joking politeness, hers would have contained a lot of sarcastic insinuations. The girls were better off with him doing the talking, she concluded.

"Okay. We're sorry. But could we have just one picture with you guys? That would be like super-awesome!" the girls insisted.

April thought of the possibility of those girls posting the photo on a social network of their choice and panicked. They had lied to their agents and the company this morning to get away. They would be so busted and also in a lot of trouble if that happened. So the answer that was on the tip of her tongue was something along the lines of "No! No! No! God, noooooo!"

Again Steve beat her to it. Perhaps he was trying to do some damage control, thinking she would handle the situation badly. Well, he was probably right about that. He was super-extra-polite around fans. She was too, but in situations like this she would sometimes draw the line.

"I'll let ya in on a little secret, girls. We kind of sneaked out te have a night away from the others, so this got ter be one fer the family album. No twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, ya got that?" he said with a stern expression on his face that he followed up with an appeasing smile. They smiled back and nodded, which seemed to be enough for Steve. April wasn't quite so sure, but she decided to shut up for now and try to trust his ability to charm people to do his bidding.

"So where do ya want us fer the pic? Standin' up? Sittin'?" he asked.

"No, you stay seated, but scoot a little closer to each other," one of the girls said, while the rest of them was already positioning themselves behind them.

"Sure that's a good idea?" April finally couldn't help but ask. She threw Steve a look that showed some of her discomfort.

He leaned closer to her and whispered his answer into her ear, so the others wouldn't hear. "We want them gone, right? I reckon they'll leave after they've gotten what they wanted."

He pulled back and gave her an expectant look. His arm was still resting over the back of her seat and his face was so close she could see her own reflection in his irises.

"Okay," she said eventually and positioned her chair closer to his. He laid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. They smiled at the camera and the girls seemed to be happy too. Case close. Happy ending. Credits rolling. At least April thought as much. But unfortunately right after the photo things went from bad to worse.

April felt something cold and metallic wrap around her wrist and heard a clicking noise. The drunk girl dressed up like a cop had handcuffed her and Stephen together. It wasn't one of those regular handcuffs either, but a slightly kinkier version. The cuffs were cushioned with a fluffy pink fabric and the part that connected them was a metal chain of roughly a foot.

"Very funny, lass," Stephen's tone implied that he was less than amused. "Now take those off of us again, okay?" The "okay" at the end of the sentence was accompanied by a stern gaze and even in her inebriated state it became clear to the girl that she'd better unlock those handcuffs now.

Her search for the key seemed to be fruitless however, so one of her friends decided to interfere with a terse smile on her face. "Charley, come on! The key! You got the key, right?!"


	7. Shades of Sheamus

**Author's note: **_Happy New Year, everyone! Hope it's going to be a good one for all of us!_

_On with the story. I would like to point out again that I don't own anything, except for the plot (Wait, there is actually a plot? Naaah, kidding, you guys. Get's more ploty as we continue...)_

* * *

"I... I... I don't know," the slowly sobering drunk girl stuttered, searching her pockets and her handbag frantically.

April rolled her eyes. "This is just great! Next time we're in a mess and have to make a decision, you let me handle things!" She gave Steve a look that seemed to say "this is all _your_ fault".

He shrugged and tugged experimentally at the handcuffs. His left hand and her right one were chained together, so the way they were currently sitting didn't leave them too much room to move around. He got up and placed his chair to her right, taking his beer with him with a calm stoicism that completely unnerved her.

"Don't you wanna say something?" she asked in complete and utter disbelief. When it had come to the car breaking down, he had cursed like a sailor and now he wasn't even going to say a word?!

In the meantime the cheerful bachelorettes had become decidedly less cheerful and disproportionately more twitchy and started muttering apologies. Apparently that key was nowhere to be found, even after several purses had been turned upside down.

"Look at them, April! Ya tink it's gonna do any good if I start screamin' at tem?" he was agitated, so his Irish accent was all over the place. Underneath his words she could sense some barely suppressed anger he was trying very hard to rein in. Not knowing what else to do she awkwardly patted his shoulder and the chain let out a soft jingling noise.

"I'm really sorry," Bride-zilla said and the sympathetic tone in her voice made April consider cutting her some slack, "We're going to fix that and we're totally going to..."

She was interrupted by Steve. "That's fine. We're going te find ourselves an emergency locksmith service or somethin'. You just relax an' enjoy the rest of yer night out." His tone was final and made pretty clear that he wanted them gone now.

They probably sensed it was best to comply and retreated, muttering several more apologies all the while.

"You do realize that if word comes out about that back in Sacramento, we should consider joining a witness-protection program. New identities, names, bad wigs and a spray-tan for you," she held up her handcuffed wrist for emphasis.

"Aaaaah! Don't remind me!" he ran his hands over his face. "Do ya know Drew an' Stuart?"

April shook her head.

"Well, be happy bout that, darlin'. They're constantly competin' over who's the bigger pain in the arse..."

He looked at his beer for a second thoughtfully, then pushed it away from himself with an expression of regret on his face. "Probably not a good idea te keep drinkin' then, ey?"

"Why? Do you get gropey after you had some beer?" she teased him with a shit-eating grin.

He gave her a calculating look and raised an eyebrow. "Not much te grope about ya, lass."

"What?!" she said sharply. Apparently after everything that happened today, he felt comfortable enough around her to make those sort of comments. She didn't know whether that was a good thing or not. He was definitely much cheekier and direct than she had expected him to be initially. "Excuse me!" she exclaimed and sounded almost like Vickie in her outrage. Upon realizing that, she had to smile almost against her own volition. Steve was smirking too, so she punched his shoulder. "Quit grinning, you idiot! You don't get to grin. You've just offended me." She crossed her arms over her chest and inevitably looked down at it. It wasn't too small. Just the right size. Who the hell did he think he was?

"In case yer wonderin'," he cleared his throat, "it was a pun about yer height, not the size of those." There was a hint of pink on his cheeks now.

"How original!" she shot back. "I love those kind of jokes just as much as you probably adore those remarks about your skin being the colour of mayonnaise."

"Okay, okay, I get it. No jokes 'bout yer height in exchange fer no jokes about me bein' a pasty fella from Ireland." He held out his hand to her.

"Deal." She shook it. "Wanna finally tell me why you wanna stop drinking now?"

"Do you want to come to the gents with me?" he asked and she wrinkled her nose.

"Do you have to go?" she asked, becoming aware of the bizarreness of the situation as she asked the question.

"Not if I stop drinkin' now," he told her awkwardly after a moment of hesitation.

* * *

It was 10 pm by the time they were back in Sacramento and the locksmith had cracked those handcuffs open. He had given them some odd looks and smirked all the way through, but ultimately they had been freed from the handcuffs, which was a good thing.

"You want to keep them?" the locksmith had asked before his departure and April had answered "yes" to both the locksmith's and Stephen's surprise.

"Yer such a nut," Steve told her after he had closed the door behind the man.

She was wearing the handcuffs like some strange sort of necklace now and just grinned at him. "Thank you." She did a little curtsy.

"I'm gonna head on over to my room now," she announced.

"You do that, dar'," he said. "Sleep tight," he said warmly and was about to open the door for her.

"I want a hug!" she announced. His eyes widened comically. He hadn't counted on her wanting to hug him, so her words took him by surprise. Actually, after everything that had happened today, he had suspected that she'd much rather want to kick him in the shins instead. "Come on, you big dork!" she said and surged forward to embrace him. Her arms wrapped tightly around his midsection and her head came to rest against his chest. He let out a surprised "Ufff!" when it happened, a bit like an oversized-teddy bear. Actually that was very much like she saw him after today. Sometimes Creative didn't have the worst ideas in the world. Maybe she was lucky to be stuck with him after all.

"If you ever want to go on a road trip again, Sheamo, I'm completely game," she told him, looking up at him, still hugging him.

"Thanks, but I'm not sure I'll survive another one of those..."

"Didn't you have fun? I had a lot of fun," she pouted.

He had to grin. "Does yer idea of fun always involve handcuffs?"

"Only if you're around, babe," she winked at him and stepped out of his embrace. Huh? What had she done just there? Had she just flirted with him? Batting her eyes, smiling... Yup, full-on flirting. Where had that come from? He wasn't even her type. Well, this whole day had been crazy, why not go out on a crazy note as well?

"Interestin'," he opened the door with a grin. "What's that supposed te mean? Ya wanna control me or keep me close because yer afraid I'm goin' te bolt?"

"Have you considered there is a third option? Maybe I'm just into kinky stuff," she flashed a dazzling grin at him that made him break out a smile as well.

"Does that count as sexual harassment at the workplace?" he retorted.

"I'm not being serious," she clarified.

"Relax, neither am I."

"So, just so you know, a lot of guys would be glad to be harassed by me," she continued, slowly walking through the door.

"Yeah, I bet," the irony in his voice was hard to miss.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" she threw him a challenging look.

"Well, Black Widow indeed. Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, Dolph Ziggler...," he counted off the names on his fingers, which only made her grin a wicked grin at him and cock her head to the left.

"Yeah, but only you bring out that extra kinky side, babe," she reached for the handcuffs around her neck and started playing around with one of them for emphasis.

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Ya have no idea what kinky is, darlin'."

"Oh," she chuckled, "are you going to teach me? Wait, I've read that somewhere before... Young, innocent, impressionable girl gets corrupted by older man. Isn't that a best-selling book or something?"

He actually chuckled at her comment. It was a warm and rather pleasant sound. "Yeah, except that yer not thaaaaat innocent an' impressionable."

"Got that right," she grinned and rocked on the balls of her feet once. And with a lowered voice she added: "I bet it would be me who'd do all that corrupting anyway. Not you..."

"What was that?" he asked, taking a step towards her.

"Nothing," she beamed. "So goodnight then...," she said, feeling surprisingly reluctant to leave. It had been fun spending time with him and that little mock flirting routine at the end had been the cherry on top.

"Night, sweetheart. Dream of me," he winked

"And wake up screaming in the middle of the night?"

"Depends on what kind of screams those are..."

"Eeeeeeew. Definitely screams of horror."

"Pity," he laughed.

"Yeah, life's tough," she winked at him.

"Indeed."

"Night, Steve."

"April," he nodded at her once and closed the door.

* * *

Travel days were never any fun really. At the beginning April had enjoyed those days and sat there staring out of the windows of buses, planes and trains in fascination. Because at that point it had still been a novelty and she thought she'd miss out on something if she didn't look, but after the week she'd been through she was just plain tired. True yesterday had helped recharge her batteries somewhat, but she still had had to deal with... well, with everything today.

This morning had been a stark reminder of that. She had had various media appointments and they had drilled her with what seemed like a thousand questions. She had tried to smile and answer most of them politely and eloquently, but they still echoed in her mind. _How do you feel about your title loss AJ? What would you like to tell Natalya? Your thoughts about Sheamus? Let's talk shop, April, how do you and Stephen really get along? Are you at all like your in-ring characters?_ She let herself fall back in her seat with a sigh and stretched out her legging clad legs in front of her.

She looked up briefly when Celeste let herself slump into the empty seat beside her somewhere in the waiting area at the Sacramento airport. Their luggage was checked in, they had made it past security, now there wasn't much to be done except for waiting. The rest of the company was milling around somewhere at coffee shops, duty free shops or media stores.

Claudio, aka Antonio Cesaro, was sitting across the aisle from them, reading some German book she couldn't even pronounce the name of. Both she and Celeste gave him a polite nod. He smiled back and returned to his reading.

"So where were you yesterday?" Celeste poked her index finger into her rips to emphasize her question. "I know you. You don't do sick-days. You're too disciplined to take a day off because of something minor like a headache or a cough. If you do really get sick, have to stay put for a whole week because you can't stand straight. So I smell BS. Where's the BS, April?"

April sighed. She should have known better. She should never try and hide something from her best friend. "I took a day off to get my head free."

Celeste wrinkled her nose. That was very un-April-like. "On your own?"

"What do you mean 'on my own'? What is this, the Inquisition?" April asked tensely.

"Wow! Someone's grumpy today...," Celeste smirked and bumped her shoulder slightly against April's. The gesture showed she wasn't angry with her friend for being moody; it was more like a non-verbal 'Hey, come on! Spill! You know you can trust me.'

April decided to keep her response also non-verbal. The airport was a bad place to reveal secrets. Lots of unwanted ears listening in and stuff. She got out her cell phone and opened the folder with her pictures. A photo of Stephen and her against the backdrop of Lake Tahoe popped up on screen. It made April grin because they were goofing off and making duck faces in it. She still wondered how she got him to do that. Maybe the Celtic Warrior had a dorky side...

Celeste didn't seem to wonder the same thing or else the expression on her face would have been different. She was gaping openly at April's cell phone, which made its owner quickly, almost self-consciously, press a button on it to make the picture disappear.

"Okay... Erm... Gotta admit, I didn't seen that one coming," Celeste said after a while and gave her a pointed look.

"What?" April asked. Celeste pulled down her glasses on her nose and looked at her friend sternly over their rim. "What?!"

"You barely know the guy and you take off a whole day with him? Is there something going on I should know of?" Celeste asked with a teasing grin.

"No!" April said in a disgruntled voice, which only made Celeste's grin cheekier. "Come on, wipe that stupid grin out of your face. Seriously, Celeste, I mean it! It's not like that."

"Mmmh-mmmh," the Texan smiled at her. "Sure."

"If you have to know, it was more like a bonding experience to me." The word bonding actually brought back memories from last night and the little handcuff incident. Maybe it was better not to mention that to Celeste. She quickly continued talking. "You know that I might have to work with him for while and that's kind of hard when I don't know the first thing about him...," she tried to convince her friend.

"I don't seem to recall any of those bonding experiences going on with Bryan, Nick or Phil..."

"That's because it was his idea. Not mine," April explained, her voice getting a little agitated now. Why couldn't Celeste just drop it already?

"What was his idea?" a by now familiar male voice with an also familiar Irish accent asked from behind them and made both woman tense in their seats in surprise. Speaking of the devil... To be honest, April's reaction to Stephen's unexpected arrival was a little more dramatic than just tensing up. She actually did a little jump in her seat.

"What? Whose idea? Erm... Nothing," she babbled nervously. She usually was much smoother than that, so it was up to Celeste to save the day.

"The clerk over at the coffee shop convinced April to try the new Pumpkin Latte," Celeste lied with such frightening slickness that April felt compelled to stare at her for the fraction of a second before she caught herself and started nodding enthusiastically.

"Right," Stephen said in a tone of voice that heavily implied he didn't believe one single word coming out of Celeste's mouth. He gave each woman a pointed looked before he rounded the line of seats to stand in front of them. He had his travelling bag slung over his shoulder, of course there was a flat cap on his head, he wore dark blue jeans and a dark blue jacket that was unbuttoned over a black sweater. His eyes fell on the empty seat next to April and he hesitated for a second, but then he sat down.

"I'm willing te let the fact slide that ya both just full-on lied te me fer now...," both women sucked in a breath of air involuntarily, but he didn't give them enough time for justifications or retorts. "But only because we've gotta bigger fish te fry, April. I've just gotten an email from Creative which is really bad news. Well, not entirely... But some of it is." Oddly enough he was grinning while he said that, which was either supposed to be reassuring, because the news couldn't be that bad, or it meant he simply was a sadist and enjoyed giving other people bad news. April's bets were heavily on the first option, because she thought she already knew Stephen well enough to be able to exclude the second one.

"I thought your buddy Stuart was the one with the bad news gimmick," April said. "Are you going to deliver bad news now before you Brogue-Kick your adversaries into oblivion or what? Is that why you're grinning like that?" she joked sort of lamely.

"No," his grin diminished somewhat, now that she had made him aware of it, but it didn't disappear entirely. "It's hard not te smile when they tell ya yer gettin' a shot at the Intercontinental Title."

"Wow! Good for you!" Celeste interjected.

"Thanks. I appreciate it, lass," Steve said warmly.

"Yeah, congrats...," April said finally with her enthusiasm still toned down a notch because that bad news part was still worrying her. Her worries seemed to be justified. Steve's face assumed a slightly more apologetic expression now.

"Yeah... erm... Thanks... I still need te give ya the bad news though, luv," he cleared his throat. Was he nervous? That was a bad sign, right? What would follow had to either be embarrassing or terrible enough to have Steve flustered. And, judging by what she knew about him so far, the Irishman didn't do flustered, well, unless a hen's night was involved.

He continued and his words didn't do much to reassure April either. "There's a catch though. Creative says that we have such a lot of chemistry going on that..."

"That what?!" April paled despite the sharp tone of her voice. "They never said something about chemistry to me! That sounds like they had another one of their stupid ideas... Great!" Pushing her frustration aside, she threw him a pleading look. "Please, tell me I'm on the wrong track here..."

He just shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I'm sorry?" he offered finally.

"What's going on?" Celeste asked in a preoccupied tone of voice. "What are you sorry about?"

"Oh God!" April groaned and let her upper body slump forward, so her head disappeared between her legs. Assume crash positions! Usually people were supposed to sit like that before a plane crash, so doing that at an airport before even boarding a plane was probably bad form, but right now April couldn't bring herself to care. She felt the gentle touch of a calming hand on her back. It was warm through the fabric of her sweater and patting her back in reassurance before it was gone again just as quickly. It was probably Celeste. Definitely Celeste. Steve wouldn't do that, right?

She looked up again, running her hand through her long hair to smooth it back. Time to face the music. "Okay," she said in a determined tone of voice, "Can I read the email?"

He nodded and after a few seconds of letting his fingers run over the display to enter pins and open programs, he handed the cell phone to her.

"Will someone finally tell me what this is about?" Celeste asked Steve sort of irritatedly while April was busy reading.

"Creative is just pulling the usual romance arc shite with her character," April heard Steve explain. His explanation was shortly after followed by an "oh" of realization coming from Celeste.

April's eyes were flitting over the words of the email. It was from someone called Nina, probably Steve's writer. The tone of it was cheerful right up to the title win, then imploring and polite sentences started popping up. Sentences like "I hope that you don't mind..." or "Just think of the possibilities we'd have in terms of story telling."

"What?!" Her eyebrows shot up when they read the next couple of sentences. "Your chemistry with AJ is off the charts... The audience seems to respond well to Sheamus and AJ together...," each pause was accompanied by a contemptuous scoff. "And is she seriously comparing us to Triple H and Stephanie McMahon?! I mean, come on! She's just sucking up to you," April lowered the cell phone and looked at Stephen pointedly.

He just sat there and it made her angry. Why wasn't he as outraged about this as she was?

"So you win the title and that's going to get us in such a celebratory mood we decide to make out in the ring?! Unbelievable!" she called out incredulously, holding out his cell phone to him like it was a puppy that had just soiled itself. He took it from her, his hand steady while hers was shaking with rage.

"Do they ever occasionally proof-read what they're writing? I mean last week, almost literally last week, we still hated each other guts and now we're supposed to suck face? That's bad writing if I've ever seen it," her voice was starting to get loud and her behaviour was drawing other people's attention.

"Calm down, April," Celeste tried to appease her friend, looking around nervously. "I'm sure we can find a solution..."

"A solution?" She unzipped her hoodie and revealed the Black Widow T-shirt she was wearing underneath. "I agreed to this. Here!" she indicated the logo on the shirt, "Love bites and all that... I just didn't figure it would bite that often..."

"We don't have to nod it off," Stephen decided to reason with her. "Have you read the last part of the email? We don't have to do it if we don't want to. I was told to discuss the matter with you and tell them what we decided in the next 48 hours. If they don't hear back from us, that means we agree and they can go ahead with the whole thing."

"And what is your take on this?" April asked finally.

The conversation was getting more and more personal and that was probably the reason why Celeste saw it fit to say the next words. "Maybe I should give you some privacy to talk this over...," she suggested.

"No, you don't have to...," AJ started to say, but Celeste had already gotten up and was starting to walk away. Clearly she felt uncomfortable about being part of this conversation.

"Okay. See you on the plane later?" April suggested in dejected voice when she had realized that it made no sense trying to convince Celeste to stay. As a consequence April's eyes narrowed as they settled back on Steve. Some irrational part of her blamed him for this new, rather unpleasant development, like sending Celeste away and the whole kissing deal had been his idea. "Sooo? What do you have to say about all of this?"

"What do I have to say about all of this?" he repeated, looking down at the open palm of his hands pensively. It seemed like he only was asking himself that question now. She wondered what was going on in that head of his. Hopefully he soon would start talking and she wouldn't have to wonder anymore.

"The news about the title is fantastic, the kissing bit though is odd..." She raised an eyebrow, clearly not pleased by his choice of words. "I mean I wouldn't mind kissing ya. For the obvious reasons..." She noticed how he had trouble finding the right words, wringing his hands in desperation and casting furtive glances skywards like he expected some sort of divine intervention.

"Obvious reasons?" she repeated now adding her second eyebrow to the first that was already raised.

"April, honestly! Yer aware yer not making this particularly easy fer me?" He shot her an imploring glance. "I'm jus' a bloke. An' it's not like I'm dead yet or somethin'. Yer not exactly hard on the eye, ya know..."

"Thanks, I guess," she grinned, partially because of his compliment, partially because it was funny to see him squirm like that. She supposed it didn't happen too often. The fact that she got under his skin like that made her feel strangely empowered. After all he was a man's man. Over six foot tall and 267 lbs of muscles.

"Still it wouldn't feel right...," he added.

Now that made her perk up her ears. "Why?"

"We're mates, right?" He looked at her face, his expression full of seriousness.

She nodded.

"I'm here te wrestle, not te snog beautiful birds. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but shouldn't this be about skills?"

April let out an audible sigh of relief. She couldn't agree more. Actually she had never felt more like hugging him than right now.

"What?" he asked worriedly, despite the fact she was smiling at him now, which should have somewhat reassured him.

"Nothing. I'm just glad we're on the same page here, that's all."

"Yeah, me too," he smiled back and briefly touched her shoulder for emphasis. "So what do we do now? Tell 'em te shove it or what?"

"I don't know. I mean they offered it, but is saying 'no' really an option?"

"It is if you feel uncomfortable about this," he told her in a serious tone of voice. "Do you feel uncomfortable about this?"

She regarded his face for a long time, searching her feelings, which was difficult. Despite the fact that they had managed to grow closer in the last days and even become friends, she still sometimes felt insecure around him. Being with him didn't bring her the same feeling of comforting reassurance as Celeste's or Phil's presence did. With him she always felt oddly flustered and not quite herself, because something about him made her nervous, which was ridiculous really. She performed in front of a huge audience on a weekly basis. The word nerves shouldn't even exist in her vocabulary any more... And yet again his mere presence made her occasionally display certain traits of character she thought she had long grown out of, like shyness and insecurity.

Then there was his way of looking at her. It wasn't creepy. There was nothing creepy about it. Just that sometimes when his gaze landed on her unexpectedly her heart would do a little jump. It unnerved her. Because she didn't know how to deal with that or what to think of it. She was in her mid-twenties for crying out loud and he wasn't supposed to get those sort of reactions out of a grown woman like her. So what did that mean? Did she have a crush on him? No, it was probably just some fleeting feeling of attraction. He wasn't exactly bad looking. By general standards. But he wasn't her type, so that explanation didn't really get her anywhere. It just didn't make sense. No sense at all, which left her nothing short of frustrated and confused.

Now what would happen if they added kissing in the mix now? She supposed nothing good. Only more confusion.

She saw the waiting look on his face that was now bordering on worried and remembered that he had asked her a question before she got lost in her own thoughts. "Uncomfortable isn't the right word," she finally said.

"Then what is?" he asked, his eyes regarding her face intently, which made her involuntarily fidget in her seat.

"I don't know," she said finally and with considerable amount of frustration.

"The question is, do we do this or not?" he looked at her expectantly.

"Why do you ask me?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Yer the girl? It's the polite thing te do? An' I don't have a feckin' clue what te do..."

She laughed softly at his admission, which sort of took the tension out of the situation and made him smile as well.

"Still time is ticking...," he gave to think.

"Yeah. So how about we try a new angle?"

"Like what?" She liked how the word 'like' sounded when he pronounced it. There suddenly was an unexpected 'o'-sound in it that hadn't been there before.

"Like we try to see this from a professional angle for a change. Ask ourselves what's best for business," she suggested with a sly grin.

"Now that was uncalled for. Don't cha go usin' that tasteless line on me, lass," he grinned and briefly took off his cap to rub the back of his head.

"Why not? It's not like they are leaving us much choice, right? Why not break out a bit of sarcasm while we're stuck between a rock and a hard place?"

"I'd laugh right along with ya, luv, if only ya weren't comparing kissin' me te a rock an' a hard place kind a situation," he said, actually looking a bit pouty there. "I mean, I might be a bloke but I've got feelings too!" No that last remark made the suspicion that he had been joking become a certainty. April grinned sarcastically as he spoke on. "What am I te ya in that scenario? The rock or the hard place?"

"You're aware that in our line of work the words 'the Rock' are only ever used to refer to one single person, right?"

"So that leaves the 'hard place' then. Great! Jus' great!"

"Yeah, and I'm sure since you're a guy and all, you've got at least a gazillion bad jokes about the words 'hard place' popping up in your head now," she shot back.

He just grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "Gotcha!" she thought triumphantly.

"Still, that leaves us with one question: What are we supposed to do now? We can't really say 'no', but we both don't feel a hundred percent about this either," she summed up the situation in a nutshell. All she got was a helpless look in return. Great! Talk about a rock and a hard place!


	8. Red and Scarlett Kissing

**Author's note: **_I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you reading and following this story. But most importantly of all I would like to thank my fantastic beta UntilNeverDawns. Thank you for sticking with my through two stories and sifting through my mistakes. Thanks, luv_!

* * *

It was the evening of Sheamus' championship match and April was only occasionally focused enough to be AJ. She was AJ as she watched the match from ringside, as she cheered him on. She was in character, she tried to convince herself, ignoring her nerves and the jittery feeling she got whenever she thought about how this evening would end. They had never practiced the kiss. Ever. They had talked about it, but that was that. They both knew how to kiss, right?

She wanted to focus her gaze on something else to distract herself from the thought of kissing. The floor, her nails... Unfortunately there was no championship belt to hold on to for comfort... Such a pity! So sad! Her eyes inevitably settled on Paul Heyman who stood opposite of her, on the other side of the ring and cradled Curtis Axel's belt against his chest like a baby. Hopefully she would soon be the one safekeeping that little treasure.

Now, firmly settled in her role, she threw Heyman a creepy grin and waved at him before she pointed at the belt in his arms. "Soon," she mouthed and made the little fat man blanch.

Inside the ring Sheamus was battling Curtis Axel. Axel was fighting valiantly, but Sheamus' brute force was wearing him down. She could tell because of the way Axel was swaying on his feet. She inclined her head to the left and watched in fascination. A sly smile started spreading on her features.

Across from her Heyman started to get fidgety. Surely he was dying to help his protégé. But that wouldn't happen today. Not while AJ was around. He was starting to climb up on the apron and she calmly skipped around the ring in his direction. Because of his weight he was lacking the ability to move quickly, so she could take her time. Just when he was standing outside the on the apron, his hands on the top rope, she reached for the belt holding up his pants and pulled him back down. He fell like a sack of potatoes and she grinned down into his baffled face. Huffing and puffing in indignation like that he looked like a huge ugly fish.

Then she heard the referee's three-count and Sheamus song blaring over the speakers. She looked up in surprise. That had been quick. She forced herself to smile, even though she absolutely didn't feel like smiling, climbed through the ropes and into the ring where Sheamus was waiting, grinning proudly and holding the title over his head. Faced with him, the ability to channel her inner AJ suddenly left her. It would happen now, an inner voice whispered. No way back.

If he felt any nerves, they must have been drowned out by all that adrenaline coursing through his veins right now, because he showed no hesitation when he hugged her. She was squished against his sweaty, bare chest and found that she didn't mind. Maybe because she was numbed by the feeling of nervousness.

When he let go of her, his eyes were on her. Gentle, but assessing the situation nevertheless and perhaps while he was regarding her, there was something in her expression that made him sway from the script they had been handed, because he didn't lean in and kiss her passionately. Instead he just let go of her. What she felt then surprised her - disappointment.

Her surprise and maybe some of that strange disappointment must have shown on her face, because he shot her a funny look when next his eyes fell on her and he adjusted the belt over his shoulder.

What was going on? Why had he reconsidered? Was it because of her? Was she that repulsive? All of those questions and insecurities led to the only and single incident in which April ever consciously broke kayfabe in her career. "Steve?" she asked shyly, her voice thankfully low enough to not be picked up by the microphones overhead.

He shook his head and gave her one last, almost regretful look before he climbed out of the ring. She followed and was still standing on the apron when he had already climbed down the steel steps.

"Sheamus!" she called out this time. At least she still remotely remembered they needed to play along with this charade, even though they didn't particularly like it.

He turned around to face her. She stepped down the first one of the steps and he came to stand in front of them. There was a strange expression in his eyes now. One she hadn't seen before. Soft, affectionate. He was regarding her like she was the single most important being on the planet right now. Her breath hitched as he took a step closer. She didn't know whether to run away or stay just where she was to find out what was going to happen next.

She was now standing on the bottom of the steps, which for the first time made them the same height. The arena was strangely silent. They were all waiting for what was to come next. Just like her.

April was looking straight into Sheamus' eyes. She didn't possess the strength to be AJ at this point. Under his gaze pretenses fell away. She could no longer think of him as Sheamus right now. "Steve. Steve. Steve," it echoed in her mind.

She felt him touch her hand and tug at it the tiniest bit. "Come on," he said softly.

"Yes," she replied equally softly.

She stepped forward to comply, but he was blocking her path. She felt his other hand at the small of her back pulling her against him and her heart was pounding and pounding away. Didn't mice sometimes die because their tiny hearts beat too fast? Maybe that would happen to her now too.

She felt her body melt into his. The heat that radiated from him thanks to the fight, the warm dampness that was soaking through her shirt when she was pressed against his sweaty chest. But that didn't deter her. It was more like an incentive to continue.

His sudden vicinity was sensory overload on so many levels. She felt his arms wrap around her body. They were warm and muscular and instilled a certain feeling of security in her. Her nostrils sucked in rapid little breaths and also his scent, a combination of the last traces of his cologne and a fragrance that had to be uniquely him. It made her stomach tingle pleasantly and she subconsciously moved closer to inhale more of it. His eyes were still on her, gazing at her and luring her in as his lips slowly descended on hers. Their pressure, when they finally touched hers, was self-confident, but not brutal.

The kiss felt oddly real. Like it wasn't scripted and there were real emotions behind it. It started out as smaller, testing kisses as if he wanted to allow her some time to get accustomed to the situation and perhaps even get comfortable with it.

Comfortable, now that was a strange word to describe what was happening. This was more like heart-stoppingly exciting. Her palms were sweaty and her head was sort of woozy, but she couldn't help herself, she couldn't stop, even though she should have. It felt too good. It felt so good she wanted to have more of this. She wanted to be closer to him. She wanted to kiss him properly. She wanted him to kiss her like one would kiss his girlfriend goodbye at the station, same intensity, same lack of reserve, same feeling of slight desperation.

Perhaps the way she responded to his kisses seem to communicate some of that desire. His arms wrapped around her waist tightly and she felt him lift her off her feet, but that lost relevance when he deepened the kiss and took it to a whole new level. His beard scratched against her face. She didn't mind. She heard catcalls and whistles in her ears. She didn't mind. Her heart was pounding and pounding and pounding. Her head was spinning. She didn't mind. He made a low humming sound that vibrated through his chest and straight into her own. It drove her crazy. She wanted this to be real. Was it real? Was it? It had to be!

"No! Stop! This isn't real!" her mind screamed forcefully, warning her not to fall prey to an illusion. That inner protest was so vehement it made her freeze up. He noticed her lack of response immediately. He put her down and pulled back to look at her. Her hands gently, but slowly, pushed him back as well.

They stood there for several seconds just staring at each other. And then somehow the noises from the audience filtered back in. "Sheaaaaamus!" she heard a female fan's cry from the audience. The scream seemed to bring him back to reality as well. He gave her one final look, which was nothing short of apologetic. Only Steve would feel apologetic about giving her the kiss of her lifetime, she thought ironically. Panic swept over her when he turned around seconds later.

On impulse she wanted to tell him to stay, but then she remembered it was not just the two of them. It was the two of them, the script and an arena filled with people. She touched her lips pensively as she saw him go and only after he had disappeared up the ramp, she slowly started moving on shaky legs as well.

* * *

She was still in her ring gear, still sitting on top of the same transport box since she walked off stage. The mood she found herself in was strangely contemplative and sort of melancholic. A lot of thoughts were running through that head of hers, most of them revolving around a tall, Irish redhead.

She let her legs dangle over the edge of the box, while she silently sat there contemplating life and how strange it all was. One minute you would feel like you had it all figured out in your head and then BOOM something big would happen which would make it unmistakably clear to you that you hadn't had anything figured out in the first place. For instance her feelings, they were sort of muddled up right now. She was aware of the crush she had developed on him, her raging hormones that after months of being single seemed to be all over the place after one single very good and thorough kiss. She was aware of those things and they brought on a minor onslaught of resignation coupled with something akin to a little depressive episode.

Just when she wanted to indulge those sad feeling some more, she had already drawn her knees against her chest and positioned her chin on top of them, someone plonked down on the transport box next to her.

The universe was cruel when it came to the big things and merciful when it came to the smaller ones today, so the person who sat down next to her wasn't Stephen Farrelly, but Phil Brooks.

"Oh! It's you... For a second I was afraid it would be someone else..." A breath of relief whooshed from her lips and her shoulders slumped visibly.

"Who'd you think it was?" She took a deep breath to answer his question, but he didn't give her a chance to reply. "Sheamo?"

"Yeah," she said in a grave tone of voice.

"Huh? Did I miss something?" he looked at her in disbelief, but there was an odd twinkle in his eyes like he was up to something, but April was too distracted by the irritating thought that one of her best friends had been too busy to pay attention to her match today.

"Don't tell me you've been checking on hockey results again...," she rolled her eyes.

"And miss your big kissing scene with the rising music and the Red Butler and Scarlett O'Hara flair?" he grinned maliciously. She knew that he would have a field day with that one. "See what I did there? RED Butler, eh?" he nudged her shoulder, conspiratorially as if he expected her to laugh about his joke as well. Only that she didn't.

His face fell. "Awwww shit! Aps, what's going on?" he asked her after he had studied her face for a few seconds. She shook her head and blinked rapidly against the unwanted excess liquid forming in her eyes. Wow! Great, why not start crying as well? After all, her professionalism was going down the drain tonight anyways...

"Did I hit a nerve there? Is there something going on with you and Sheamo I don't know about?" She just shrugged her shoulders weakly, while Phil rolled his eyes.

"You know, I don't get you people...," he started.

"Us?!" April said sharply, momentarily forgetting her sadness over an unexpected bout of anger. "Us people?! What the hell do you mean?"

"The fact that you have to make a big production out of liking someone. I mean it's really simple. You like someone? Go tell him. He likes you back. Or he doesn't. End of story," he said those sentences with conviction. Like he had spent a long time thinking and wondering over other peoples' odd behavior and couldn't take it anymore.

"Sorry, Phil, but we're not all geniuses like you," she told him in a sulky tone and crossed her arms over her chest.

Her anger somehow managed to get through to him and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Phil's expression soften. "Yeah, or the world would be full of jerks," he ran his hands over his face. Maybe he was frustrated by his obvious lack of sensitivity as well.

She looked at him for a couple of seconds. He was right. He was a jerk, but he also was her friend.

"So you think it would really make things easier if I just told him that I like him?" she said, her voice now lacking any of that aggression it had held earlier.

Phil's teeth briefly tugged at his bottom lip searching for that lip ring he still had used to wear only a couple of months ago. He always did that when he was nervous or uncomfortable and she supposed talking about yucky feely stuff would qualify as something that made him extremely uncomfortable. "I guess... People usually end up in trouble just because they weren't clear about shit, right? I mean we are guys. We don't do subtle. He won't notice what's going on if you only hint at it. Either talk to us or don't and just shut up about it."

"Don't you think that's a little... I don't know... exaggerated?" she asked.

Phil let out a little self-deprecating chuckle. "Look at me. I know I don't get subtle. I've got my head so far up my ass I don't even notice when you need a pep talk."

"Eeeeew! A pep talk? From you? Who'd want that? Some freaking masochist maybe...," she wrinkled her nose in mock disgust and followed that grimace up with a smile that almost looked genuine.

* * *

She finally managed to hunt him down inside the hotel lobby. He was standing at the reception desk with his back to her and she jabbed her index finger into his side repeatedly to get his attention. The expression on his face changed a couple of times as he turned. Confusion, realization... a smile. He seemed genuinely happy to see her. She didn't know how she felt about seeing him.

Her heart was beating like crazy. Maybe his presence would from now on always trigger bouts of arrhythmia in her, which frankly would be very inappropriate and disconcerting, since he was her partner and would be ringside a lot during her matches.

"I've been looking for you all over the place. I wanted to...," he started and she cut him off with a wave of her hand, so he spoke the words still missing from this sentence with a frown on his face and a clearly audible question mark following right after them, "talk to you?"

"Well, isn't that grand? I want to talk to you too," she remarked, for some reason sounding annoyed though she actually she wasn't. She was just really tense.

He narrowed his eyes, looking at her intensely as he tried to evaluate the situation. "Did I do something to piss you off? Am I in trouble?"

She clenched her jaw shut, keeping the words in for now as she shook her head and looked around uncomfortably. The lobby was a place too public for a conversation like this. "Can we discuss this somewhere more private?" she suggested.

He gave her a long appraising look then finally nodded. "Me room? Yers?"

After the events of this evening she didn't feel like spending time in an enclosed space with him. It seemed too risky, what with her arrhythmia problem. And there was another problem to be taken into consideration as well. One that had only emerged a couple of minutes ago. For some reason she seemed to have develop a weird fetish for his lips, because she always ended up staring at them when they talked.

"I don't think that's a good idea. We can take a detour to get rid of our bags. But I'd prefer the rooftop terrace. I read in the brochure they had one. This time of year," it was late January, "I think there's a good chance we'll get some privacy there," she suggested, the words tumbling out of her mouth quickly. Perhaps too quickly. Like she was afraid to give him enough time to talk or interrupt her.

Despite his skeptically raised eyebrows he agreed and after they had disposed of their bags, they stepped out on the rooftop terrace. Seeing as it was getting cold out and people preferred to indulge their hedonistic side (using the spa and treating themselves to a tasty dinner inside a comfortable warm restaurant) rather than wandering around in the cold and crisp night air, they were completely alone up there. The reason why quickly came to April as she wrapped her jacket tightly around herself to shield herself from the cold wind that nipped at her cheeks and ears. Next to her Stephen put up the collar of his dark blue jacket and stuffed his hands in its pocket. "Feckin' cold," she heard him say and couldn't help but agree silently.

"So what's this about?" he asked inevitably only seconds later, voicing a sentiment that was much less harmless than the remark about the weather he had made before.

"Please," she scoffed, "no need to play dumb. You know what this is about..."

"The kiss," he said.

"The kiss," she repeated in confirmation.

He blew out a long breath which materialized as a white cloud of smoke in the cold air. The ground of the terrace was covered in pebbles, trying to give it the flair of a beach. The stones crunched under the soles of his boots as he stepped up to the railing and looked down on the city which was bathed in artificial light, some of it warm, some of it cold and blue. She stepped next to him, waiting for his answer.

"I would appreciate it if you could be honest with me... like really, really honest. Because I intend to be honest with you too. If we're both polite to each other and don't talk about things, it'll get us nowhere right now."

"I know," he nodded. "Just give me a second te collect me thoughts."

She nodded, but after a few seconds her impatience won out. "What did you want to talk to me about, by the way?"

"Same thing," she saw a crooked smile materialize on his face when she turned her head to risk a glance at his profile. For some reason that smile was infectious and she soon found herself suppressing one of her own. She wouldn't allow it to fully break out on her face, because she wanted to fool herself into believing she was cool and detached and basically acting like an adult.

"Hmmm-mmmh," April hummed in acknowledgment. "You didn't follow the script. Why was that?" she asked a few seconds later, tipping her head a little to the right as her eyes stayed glued to his face.

"Because it... Well, it just didn't feel right, ya know."

She shook her head. She didn't understand. "I don't."

He sighed and turned to look at her. The gaze of his eyes wasn't steady. She could first see it focus on her face then jump somewhere else, maybe suddenly her shoes fascinated him or maybe he was plain and simply looking at the floor. His eyes never lingered on a single spot for long. Was he nervous? Was that slightly reddish tint on his cheeks there because of the cold or because she had hit a nerve? Steve usually didn't flush. Well, he did when he was extremely agitated or uncomfortable and he would never for the life of him admit it. He was a man. Insert manly mock barking noise here.

"I...," he started, then made a face because apparently he had already gone wrong with saying the little word 'I'. "Feck!" he swore and then added the following words in a lowered voice, which probably only he was meant to hear, "How bleedin' difficult can it be, eh?". He got himself under control by clearing his throat and running his fingers over his face. When he spoke again his voice sounded calm and sincere. "I wasn't professional about the whole thing, I should apologize te ya."

She gulped. Now they were getting closer to the heart of the matter. "I'm not sure I want an apology," she confessed and suddenly quite predictably his surprised eyes were on her.

"So what do you want then?"

"I wanna talk about how we are supposed to deal with the fact there's something going on between the two of us," she said quickly. Talking about this was like ripping off a band aid. Better to do it quickly than agonizingly slow.

A pained expression appeared on his face that told her that perhaps he would have preferred to not approach the topic at all. She could relate. Oh, yes and how!

To her surprise he then let out a dry laugh; perhaps it helped him cope better with the situation. "Alright, ya certainly don't beat around the bush. Apparently I was wrong in believing yer a sweet lass." The joking tone of his voice and the small smile on his face were vastly fake and supposed to cover up how deeply uncomfortable he felt about this.

"I am, but only with people I don't really know. First I sucker them in and then when they already like me, I start behaving like a douche," she flashed him a saccharine grin even if she didn't feel like grinning at all. Actually she felt more like blushing, running away or hiding behind one of those enormous terracotta flowerpots that decorated the rooftop terrace. Possibly even all three things combined.

"That's behavin' like a douche?" He frowned when he repeated her words. "Ya could have fooled me! I reckoned ya were just bein' honest an' really blunt. A bit like a sledgehammer. Crude but effective." A spark of mischief gleamed in his eyes when he said those words and it did something funny to her. It let a long over-due real smile finally appear on her face and goose bumps run down her spine. Unfortunately she could not be in denial about that smile, but she could blame her goose bumps on the cold weather and she did without hesitation. That he had such a profound effect on her was too scary to be reckoned with right now.

"So now that we've established that I'm rude and up-front, you wanna tell me what's going on in that head of yours?" she asked him impatiently.

He leaned back against the railing and crossed his arms over his chest. "Ladies first," he said and made her contemplate for a split-second whether she could shove his ass over the railing for that comment.

"Sure, I'll go first. Why not?" she said sarcastically. "Not like I've done half the work already, right? Easy as pie and stuff..."

But as a matter of fact this wasn't easy, it was hard. It was all about damage control. Yes, honesty was vital, but how much honesty was too much? She decided that tact was useless in a situation like that. If she was too tactful about this, she might end up not saying what was important.

"Okay, here goes," April took a deep breath. "I really like you," she said in a grave tone of voice and waited in vain for a look of disgust to materialize on his face. She was nervous because what she had just said was true and that was why saying it to his face was particularly difficult. Usually people didn't go around talking about stuff like that.

She wasn't sure how to define her relationship with Steve. Were they colleagues? They had already blurred those lines too much during their little trip to Tahoe. Friends? She wasn't so sure about that anymore when she thought about how his mere presence made her tingly all over.

As he waited for her to continue, she could see a little smile appear on his face, which irritated her.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked inevitably. "This is serious! We're in deep shit."

"What if I like ya back?" he said with a charming Irish lilt in his voice that for some reason started to bug her a bit right now. She didn't want to be attracted to him. She wanted to be in denial about it and be able to continue living a life that was predictable and manageable and not as messy as this situation was turning out to be.

"Oh God! Don't say that," she ran her hands through her hair and actually pulled a little at it. "You were not supposed to say that!"

"So what was I supposed te say then?" he actually had the nerve to ask and there was still that unnerving grin on his face like he found her behavior amusing.

"I don't know. Something like 'Don't be stupid, April. It was all an act'?" she suggested helplessly.

"But it wasn't. I'm not that good of an actor," he insisted and made her look down at the tips of her shoes because she couldn't stand looking into his eyes anymore. His gaze was too intense and it inevitably made her look at his lips and contemplate kissing him again. Now that she knew that he would willingly participate in that sort of activity, it seemed too risky to even look at him.

Kissing him right now would be a bad idea. It would lead to other things. Kissing always led to other things. And they definitely didn't need that. Things were complicated enough already. They were two people who had chosen to run away with the circus. They were working in a madhouse. No really, the WWE wasn't the sanest kind of environment. In what other place did you get a clap on the shoulder for putting a colleague through a table? Nowhere but here. Was it a place were healthy and stable relationships could develop? Did she even want to be in a relationship right now?

She wasn't too sure she wanted to open that particular can of worms. She didn't do affairs. With her it was either serious or nothing at all. So how were they supposed to figure this out? Wait a second, was he even single? He was so tight-lipped about his private life he could even be married with children and she wouldn't be any the wiser.

Nothing had happened yet and she was already confused and frustrated.

"Basically we're screwed. How are we supposed to continue working together like this?" April said in a low and disillusioned voice, summing up the situation. "Wait a second! Are you even single? Do I have to worry about your girlfriend attacking me with a pitchfork, because of what happened on tonight's show?"

April heard him chuckle and inevitably looked up. Bad move! She saw his dimples and quickly looked away again. As a precaution she took a step away from him, rubbing her arms trying to warm herself up a bit.

"You cold?" he heard him ask and before she could say 'yes' or 'no' she felt his arm encircle her shoulders and pull her against his side. She knew she should have resisted or tried to maintain a certain distance, but it was so cold and his body radiated a comforting warmth. Her teeth clattered and he rubbed her upper arm with his hand. His warm hand seemed to burn right through her jacket. "No girlfriend. No pitchfork," he said simply. "Don't ya want to go inside, though? I don't get why yer so determined te have us freezin' our arses off out here anyway..."

"It's better like this, trust me," she said darkly.

"Whatever you say, luv," he said and shot her a brief sideways glance.

She sighed. "I hate situations like this."

"What's there to hate?"

"What do you mean?" she looked at him in surprise. His nose was starting to get slightly red from the cold and he sniffed briefly. The sides of their bodies were pressed against each other and his warmth was seeping into her and made her feel more mellow and relaxed by the minute.

"Well, we both feel attracted to each other, which isn't such a bad thing, right?"

"I guess," she said weakly.

"We can't ignore it because we can count on Creative te keep pushin' that romance angle. So more snogs..." He paused there, waiting for her reaction. She just nodded. "So let's not try te put any pressure on each other an' see how it all pans out...," he suggested.

"I think you're a little too relaxed about this," she said, her eyes narrowed and a frown on her face.

"What are we supposed te do? Panic an' run around in circles?" he asked her matter-of-factly.

"No, I guess not," April had to admit begrudgingly. "But don't you think the situation is confusing enough already? We'll make out in the ring and outside of it too? I have a hard time trying to draw a line between my private life and my work as it is..."

"So what?! No kissin' outside the ring? Is that what yer tryin' te tell me?!" his eyebrows were raised, there was skepticism written clearly all over his face.

"Yes, at least not until we know where we standing when it comes well, us... and the feelings stuff," she confirmed and he muttered something unintelligible. After having inquired what he had said, she got the following answer.

"I said: 'That's rubbish.'" he said, not making a secret out of his annoyance.

"It is not," she insisted vehemently and tried to step out of his embrace, which was a useless move because he immediately pulled her back against his side.

"It is too," he said.

"It is not. It's going to help us keep a clear head about things. There will be 'work-stuff' and 'us-stuff'. Like in two separate boxes," she even gesticulated with her hands to make him understand the brilliance of her plan.

"And what pray tell is 'us-stuff'?" Again with the rather pronounced 'u's. She really was starting to find his accent charming. She was in so much trouble.

"I don't know," April said, evading the question like a proper coward. "Us-stuff." She shrugged her shoulders, inevitably rubbing her left one against his arm in the process. "We'll figure it out."

"So ya didn't like me kissing ya," he concluded which made her bump her head against his shoulder in frustration and emit a soft little 'aaaah' sound.

"What?! Where did that come from now? I never said that," she looked up at him in confusion.

"Well, I figured there had te be a reason ya didn't want te do that anymore outside of the ring...," he explained and looked down at her. "So I bolloxed it up, didn't I?"

"What? No. You didn't bollox it up," the very British idiom rolled off her tongue with some difficulty.

"Okay. So how was it fer ya then? Any good at all?"

"Steve, honestly, you want me to draw you a freaking diagram or something?" Her indignation made him laugh and that only incensed her more. "It was good, okay? Really good. I liked it. I liked it a lot."

"How much?"

Her eyes actually grew huge like saucers upon that question. She just stared at him incredulously. Then he smiled a devilish smile at her that made clear to her that he was teasing her. She punched him in the side. She was pulling her blow, because her blows were not quite that harmless after all that weightlifting she did on a daily basis. He stifled a fake cough.

"You're such a big kid!" She rolled her eyes. "Grow up! This is serious."

"Oh, really? So sorry. Yer whole talk about 'us-stuff' an' 'work-stuff' must 'ave fooled me into believin' otherwise." Maybe it was her bad influence on him showing itself already, but he was really good at sarcasm when he wanted to be. She could feel his hand preemptively squeezing her shoulder like he wanted to say 'Come on, don't get upset. Stay here.' She did. His thumb started rubbing her shoulder in encouragement. Perhaps that gesture was supposed to help her relax. Surprisingly it did.

Now that she was getting less and less agitated, because things seemed to be not quite as dramatic as she had made them out to be, the situation they were in momentarily started to register. Several sensory perceptions slowly trickled into her brain like honey from a spoon. They were standing out there in the cold and she was pressed against his side, drawn to the warmth of another human body. By now her arms had stopped hanging awkwardly at her sides. Her right one was resting around his lower back. Standing that close to him she could smell the fabric softener on his clothes, his cologne, even the gel in his hair. For once he wasn't wearing a flat cap and that at the most inopportune moment too. The tips of his ears were getting red thanks to the cold.

She sniffled her nose. "We should get in. Your ears look like they're about to freeze off." She actually turned towards him and reached out her arms to touch his ears with her hands. Her palms were warm and as expected his ears were ice cold.

He grinned at her. "Human ear-warmer," he teased her. Their eyes met and her heart skipped a beat while she attempted playing it cool despite the fact that she had just unwittingly created a situation that was dangerously intimate. If he leaned down just a little more, if she craned back her head a little... She cleared her throat and took a step back.

"Coward!" he said with that mad grin on his face she had seen Sheamus sport on several occasions right before he got into a brawl. He was enjoying himself, she realized. She had to admit she did too. It was kind of fun playing with the fire as long as you didn't get singed.

"I'm no coward," she said, straightening her back and sticking out her chin proudly. "But once I have made up my mind about something, I don't go back on it. It's called determination if you're not familiar with the concept."

"Ouch! Yer quite good at working in those little underhanded barbs, aren't ya?" He took a step towards her, so they were standing as close as before. The grin on his face was challenging her to take a step back again and see how that would bode for her. She stayed were she was and met his gaze without shrinking back.

"Yeah, what of it? Anything wrong with that?" she asked, putting her arms akimbo. She had acquired her attitude growing up poor. Still the palms of her hands were sweaty. Standing so close to him made her feel like a teenager at prom night.

"No, no. It's just really attractive. Like verbally kickin' someone in the balls every now an' then. Completely charmin' an' very womanly." He was really taking to the whole sarcasm thing. April had to smile despite herself.

"Oh, shut up!" she told him and actually had to laugh a little. "You know I really like this comfortable little mutual insulting routine we've got going. We should keep that up..."

He chuckled. "Everyone likes comfortable."

"I sense a 'but' there," she said sobering up a little.

"Well, yes," he shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes things have te get a little messy before things start te feel comfortable."

She shot him glance that clearly spelled 'huh', so he chose to elaborate a bit more.

"I don't reckon tis is going te be smooth sailin', luv," he said. "No matter what we've jus' agreed on, there are certain things in life ya just can't control."

"And you say that because...," she said, challenging to speak on.

"Because it's always like that."

"Right," she summed up the whole situation with just one word. One word that was pronounced in a rather ironic way. "How about we head back in now? Your ears really look like they're gonna fall off any second now."

"Ya could play human ear-warmer again."

"Not a chance," she said with a sly smile and turned around.


	9. Magnets Like Us

**Author's note: **_Prepare for fluffiness..._

* * *

Sometimes April could swear Creative had their phones bugged or that they used flying surveillance drones to spy on their wrestlers from time to time. Right now felt like one of those moments.

AJ was running after Sheamus. He was walking down a corridor with huge strides that made it hard for the short-legged, raven-haired girl to keep up with him. After his match had ended tonight, he had taken off without so much looking at her. Actually the whole evening had gone like this. They had made their entrance. He had barely acknowledged her presence. After the match, out of which he had emerged victorious by the way, he had just grabbed his belt from her and marched past her. End of story. No "Hey, we kissed yesterday", no "Hey, AJ how are things now that we made out in front of a whole arena filled with people?" She was sort of disappointed, but more importantly she was angry. She was not going to be ignored by him.

"Hey! You!" she cried out angrily at his retreating back. "You think you can just run away from me, you coward?!"

Coward had been the wrong choice of word. Yes, it had most definitely been the wrong word, because Sheamus stopped walking mid-stride and turned around with a frown. His angry eyes settled on the petite woman standing a couple of feet away from him, wearing an artfully cut-up Brogue Kick T-shirt that was doubtlessly her own handiwork. He advanced on her with a growl on his lips. "Leave! Me! Alone!" he barked at her and his angry voice resounded from the walls of the corridor.

"Leave me alone?" she echoed incredulously. "Leave me alone?!" This time around her voice was a loud screech. "You tell that to every girl you kiss?"

"That," he paused, lowering his voice dangerously, "was a mistake and won't ever happen again."

"Do you think you can get out of this that easily?" she took a step towards him and narrowed her eyes. "I've got a news flash for you. We're stuck with each other. Partners. There's no escape. Unless you want to tell the boss lady about your little girlish temper tantrum."

"Who do ya think yer call girlish, lass?" She had ventured into dangerous territory using that word. No man would ever dare using that word addressing the Celtic Warrior. And with good reason. She had pissed him off. His body language was practically oozing testosterone and aggression. But AJ wasn't impressed. She was surrounded by men like him on a daily basis. Besides, she already knew he wasn't going to harm her. The way he had kissed her yesterday had betrayed him already. What was the saying? Barking dogs don't bite.

"First you kiss me and then you take off like a scared little girl the next time we see each other. And you call yourself a warrior...," she continued to mock him.

"I'm not scared," he growled, taking another step towards her. "I'm not scared of anything!"

She just smiled coldly and inclined her head to the right, regarding him with an unnerving calmness. "I think you are a little. You're scared because you liked the kiss. Maybe you're even thinking about doing it again right now," she mocked him.

"Get out of me sight," he told her in a dangerously low tone of voice.

"Make me," she smiled at him and let her index finger run down his chest.

His eyes followed the line of her finger and suddenly something behind them snapped. He pushed her against the stone wall and kissed her hard.

The audience inside the arena erupted in cheers, catcalls and there were even some boos in the mix as well. One thing was for certain though the kiss didn't fail to provoke a reaction out of the WWE universe.

The huge screen went black, and the camera that was directed at AJ and Sheamus was lowered. Someone screamed "And we're done!" people were starting to pack up camera equipment and microphones. Sheamus and AJ were still kissing. "I said: WE ARE DONE HERE!"

The couple literally jumped apart.

"Right. Perfect," Stephen said, blinking a couple of times. He shot a nervous gaze around before he took a couple of embarrassed steps back. "If I'm not needed here anymore, I'll be hitting the showers then." Shortly after that announcement he took off. Unfortunately in the wrong direction.

April had an amused smile on her lips that was bordering on dreamy as she watched him go. Still she had enough sense in her to notice that he was obviously rather confused and flustered. "Hey, Steve!" she called out. "The showers are that way!"

* * *

Breakfast TV was always tricky. Whenever you got to go on those kind of shows anything could happen. That was why April was kind of fidgety when she met up with Stephen backstage, after having gone through an agonizingly long hour of hair and make-up. She was wearing a fuchsia dress, which was slightly out of character, because she rarely wore dresses. That the dress made her feel uncomfortable was made clear by the way she kept tugging at the hem. She couldn't help feeling it was too short, despite the fact that it had looked nice in the mirror back inside the dressing room.

Stephen whistled through his teeth when he first saw her. "Well, look at ya, gorgeous!"

Before she could reply anything, two rather nervous looking stagehands started tugging at their clothes, trying to equip them with microphones before they were ready to walk on set. Her guy kept eying Stephen like he was expecting him to attack him at any given moment. He also said the word 'sorry' a lot as he tried to find a decent way of attaching her mike to her skin-tight dress. She gave the poor guy a grin. "Hey, relax. Do what you have to do. Red over there won't be any trouble." The stagehand nodded nervously. And Stephen chuckled.

"Yeah, fella, cross me heart. Ya won't get any trouble from me."

After the mikes had been attached to their clothes by jittery and nervous fingers, they were good to go. Since it was live TV, they had to wait for their entrance. A guy with a headset and a clipboard waved at them impatiently to walk on set.

April had watched an episode of the show on her laptop before she went to bed last night, so the cream colored decoration of the set, the beige couch with the bright green cushions and the hosts' enormous grins were no surprise to her. She smiled right back as she first shook the female presenter's hand, who introduced herself as Lisa and then the male presenter's hand, who was called Ben.

Morning shows were not her thing. They never had been. It was eight o'clock. She had arrived here at 6:30 in order to have enough time for hair and make-up and to be prepped for the interviews. She was freaking tired. No, tired was an understatement. Last night they had a house show and her joints were aching and she all wanted a hot tub and a massage, but it looked she was going to get neither of those things. So she just sucked it up like the pro she was and prepared herself for those questions that were sure to come.

"Wow! April, may I first compliment you? You look phenomenal," Ben said as he motioned them to sit down on the beige couch.

"Thanks," she smiled. "Your guys backstage did an amazing job."

A couple of technical questions followed, mostly directed at Stephen and circling around his title win and his time away from the WWE, then she was in the crossfire and she had to answer questions about her title loss, her absolute favorite topic. But she sailed gracefully around the cliffs those questions posed and even managed to squeeze in a couple of smiles. Eventually the presenters worked up the courage to get right down to the juicy bits by starting to drill them with questions about their on-going romance arc.

They started to work their way towards the topic by asking the following question: "So how is it to be working up close with a beautiful girl like April?"

Steve shot her a brief sideways glance and raised his eyebrows. By now she knew the look he got whenever he wasn't being serious. This was it. "Well, Ben," he paused for effect. "As you can easily see, it's a very taxin' job. Havin' talked to her already, you probably have realized that she's an utterly appallin' human bein'. So really dreadful, fella. Hardest time of me life. Thanks for askin' though. I appreciate your sympathies," despite the joking tone of his voice his native accent was very subdued, so April could tell that he had obviously weighed every single word he had said. Actually joking about it had been a good move. That way no one would be able to tell what his real opinion about her was. All his statement gave away in the end was that he thought she was nice, which was rather vague and harmless all things considered.

"And what do you think about working with Stephen, April?" Ben asked her.

She licked her lips and smiled. "What can I say? It's a difficult period for both of us. We don't get along at all. Also his title win? Pure luck if you ask me. The guy can't wrestle for the life of him."

"Oh, thanks," Stephen grinned at her.

"You're welcome,"April smiled at him.

"Well, it's easy to see why you two have quickly become a fan favorite," Ben commented. "You've got a lot of chemistry going on..."

"Do we?" Stephen raised an eyebrow and looked at April.

She shrugged her shoulders with a smile. "People keep saying it, so I suppose it must be true."

"Hmmmm, odd," he said with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Yeah, I know," April replied.

Lisa and Ben both smiled at their exchange. Lisa seemed to be good at sensing when the mood was relax enough to lent itself to more intimate questions. "Well, your two characters certainly don't get along quite as peacefully as you two..."

"Yeah, there's a lot tension between those two," April nodded with a smile. "They argue all the time."

"But there's also a lot of kissing," Ben commented and behind them, one of those monitors in the background decoration came to live and displayed pictures from last night that showed AJ and Sheamus sharing a kiss.

"Yeah," April downcast her eyes feeling a tiny bit embarrassed and self-conscious.

"So how is it kissing a guy like him on a regular basis?"

Normally that question would have sent April straight into a panic attack, but right now the adrenaline coursing through her veins let the perfect reply pop up in her head. "Scruffy," she said with a grin.

Her answer made the two hosts laugh and Stephen rub his beard with a smile.

"Now, we know that your characters do a lot of arguing. We would like to help you get to know each other better with a little game. How would you feel about a round of 'Mrs and Mr'?" Lisa suggested.

Stephen and April exchanged looks. April nodded at him subtly. "Why not," Stephen eventually shrugged his shoulders.

"Great," she held out two huge notepads and pens to Stephen and April with a huge inviting smile. Next she indicated two chairs that were standing back to back and had just been brought in by one of those helpful stagehands buzzing around all over the place like bees in a beehive.

They stood up, April pulled down her dress discretely, walked over to her chair and sat down. Of course the chairs had to match the rest of the decoration, so they were made out of wood and painted white. When she leaned back, her shoulders ever so slightly touched Stephen's and for a moment she didn't know whether to be reassured or freaked out by that unexpected closeness. She had no time to think about it, as Lisa addressed them almost immediately.

"So we're going to ask you a couple of questions about yourselves. You note down the appropriate answers on your notepad. And no peeking or talking before I tell you you're allowed to, okay?"

Both of them nodded obediently.

"We'll do five questions. Let's start out with something simple. Who's the tidiest?"

"Steve," April scribbled without hesitation. After he had seen her room a couple of days ago, he must have come to the same conclusion as well. She held up her notepad with a feeling of confidence a couple of seconds later.

"You both seem to agree on that one," Lisa commented with a grin. "Next. What's your partner's favorite article of clothing?"

April rolled her eyes. Too easy. "Flat cap," she wrote and had to grin as she drew a tiny flat cap next to her words.

Lisa briefly looked at the monitor. "Oh, what do we have here? 'Flat cap' and 'Converse'... Interesting. Would you both say that's correct?"

"Course."

"Right."

April nudged Steve in the side and raised her hand for a high-five. He grinned and slapped it before he turned around again.

"What color are your partner's eyes?"

"Blue."

"Brown."

The camera zoomed in on their respective eyes. "I'd say they both got that right. Maybe we should make things a bit more interesting... What's your partner's favorite movie?"

Honestly, April had nothing, but she didn't want to give herself beat, so with a smile she wrote: "_Leprechaun._"

Her answer seemed to entertain Lisa and Ben as well. Steve had apparently written "_Fatal Attraction_".

She turned around in her chair and frowned at him. "_Fatal Attraction_? Really? What made you think that?"

"Crazy woman seduces poor bloke and then tries to kill him? Ring any bells? Sounds like vintage Black Widow to me..."

"I'd be careful if I were in your position, buddy," she told him with a grin that was oddly reminiscent of her in-ring character AJ.

"Aaaaah, nice try, but you don't scare me. But honestly, _Leprechaun_?" he looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Not even close."

"Well, I thought you'd dig a movie about a little red-haired guy guarding a pot of gold," she threw him a cheeky lop-sided grin.

"Okay, you guys, no need to squabble. Maybe the last question should be something less tricky, Lisa," Ben suggested, clearly amused by the exchange between April and Steve, judging by the looks he was shooting his co-host.

"All right, Ben, so here's the last one: Who's the better dancer?"

April grinned as she wrote down her own name. She remembered having seen Sheamus dance once during a match against Fandango. It hadn't been a pretty sight.

"And we have another agreement," Lisa enthused. "Good job, you guys and thank you so much for being such great sports and playing along. April and Stephen from the WWE, everyone!"

And with that they were off the hook. A few more polite smiles, a couple of words of good-bye, a short trip back to dressing room where April changed into her normal, every-day clothes: skinny jeans, a Misfits T-shirt, her leather jacket and a pair of dark lace-up boots. No Converse for once. Stephen remarked on that too when he met her on the way out of the studio. He, on the other hand, was once again sporting one of his flat caps.

"What the heck is it with you and those caps, Steve?" she asked with a thoughtful expression on her face as they stepped out of the building onto the parking lot. They would be taking his rental back to the hotel.

"I guess they remind me of home. Is that so bad?" he shot back and winked at her.

"No, not at all," she answered and stuffed her hands into her pockets. Sometimes walking next to him she didn't quite know where to put them.

"By the way, what's your favorite movie?"

Her question made him laugh. "I don't have _a_ favorite movie. Do you?"

"I'm not going to tell you," she shook her head.

"Why?"

"Cause you can easily guess it. Come on, give it a little effort. It's easy. You just haven't been thinking hard enough back at the TV studio..."

He stopped walking and looked at her as if the answer was written in her face. His blue eyes narrowed in concentration as he took on step closer to her, which made her laugh and push him away playfully. "Come on, Steve. Come on! Come on! Come on!" she teased him.

"_The Hobbit_?" he suggested with a maniacal grin on his face.

"What?" she laughed. "Why?"

"Because for once a movie doesn't give you unrealistic expectations about your body size?" was his teasing answer that made her gape at him in disbelief.

She narrowed her eyes and accusingly pointed her index finger at his face. "Take that back. We agreed no more jokes about that!" The fact that she wasn't serious about being angry didn't escape him thanks to the way she was laughing, pinching his side.

He unlocked the car and shot her a vastly fake regretful look over the car roof. Because she was indeed rather petite, only her eyes were visible and her mouth area stayed hidden behind the car. He could tell she was smiling though and that smile grew bigger when he said the next words: "Yer right. I feel right ashamed of meself."

They got into the car.

"Atta boy," she patted his shoulder. "Wanna try again?"

"What? Guessing yer favorite film? Wouldn't it be easier if ya just told me already?"

"Now where's the fun in that?" April grinned at him.

"All right." He leaned back his head and stared at the car roof for a second. "Sorry, I got nothing."

"_The Dark Knight_?" she suggested, her tone implying that she was thinking something along the lines of 'How could you not figure that one out?'.

"Aaaaaah!" balled his hand to a fist and slowly lowered it to the steering wheel as if he wanted to hit it, but stopped at a short distance from it. "Should have really known that," he said with a reasonable dose of fake frustration in his voice.

"Yeah!" she agreed with a bright grin. "You're pretty dense."

"Oh, ya...!" He made as if he wanted to strangle her.

"What did you want to say?" she smiled at him sweetly. "That I was cute and clever and over all stunning?"

"Yeah, sure," he growled sarcastically and lowered his hands.

"Still don't know yours yet..."

"Wanna guess?" he suggested.

"God, no!"

"Come on. It will be fun. Besides how else are ya going te keep me entertained on the ride back?"

"By having an adult conversation?" April grinned at him teasingly.

He quickly gave her words some thought. "Nah! We've had all sorts of adult conversations in there...," he pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the TV studio, "...and where would the fun in that be?"

"Are you always like that after you've had media?" she wanted to know.

"Occasionally," he told her and twisted the key in the ignition. "Why? Am I gettin' on yer nerves or somethin'?"

"No, I'm just surprised, that's all. Strangely, I'm kind of okay with you acting like a toddler on a sugar high."

He nodded, ignoring the toddler comment for now. "Right... It's _Ghostbusters_ by the way."

"Really?" she asked incredulously. She hadn't expected that. When she thought of his movie collection, she imagined it to be vastly action-orientated, but now that he had said it, it made a lot of sense.

"Really," Steve confirmed. "Wanna watch it with me some time?" The question was asked casually and she could tell there was no catch to it, no ulterior motif or hidden agenda, still she hesitated to answer him.

"What?" he insisted.

"I don't think it's a good idea," she said finally.

"Why don't you think it's a good idea?" He actually tore away his eyes from traffic for a second to look at her.

"I...," she faltered. How was she supposed to explain to him that she didn't trust herself to spend time alone with him because she was afraid of what might happen if they were left to their own devices in a room at night. Kissing him for a second time last night during the show, had not exactly helped her to get herself under control. If anything her feelings for him had intensified.

"Don't be a bloody coward," he told her sternly.

"This is not about being a coward. I'm just being reasonable."

"What are you afraid is going to happen?" he asked. Despite the fact that his tone was casual, she wasn't fooled into believing the question was casual at all.

"That we'll ruin our friendship...," she said matter-of-factly.

"How is watchin' _Ghostbusters _together going te manage te do that?"

She sighed. A thought crossed her mind. Maybe not the smartest one in the history of all thoughts, but it wasn't the dumbest one either. "Pull over," she told him.

At first he shot her a surprised look, but then after she had repeated her request a second time, he complied. He parked the car on the side of the road. The TV studio was at the outskirts of town, so that meant they had at least some measure of privacy, because it wasn't like a lot of other cars would come driving by in the next couple of minutes. April unfastened her seat belt.

For a second, as she looked into Stephen's expectant and surprised face, she actually contemplated whether she was actually supposed to go through with this, but then she decided that she would, despite the fact that she felt nervous like hell. She wanted to prove a point and it was necessary, because he seemed to be oblivious to the ramifications of what was going on between them.

She reached out and leaned over the handbrake, touching his shoulders to slightly turn his upper body in her direction. Their eyes met and looking into his felt like someone had knocked the air right out of her lungs. Her palms became sweaty almost instantly. She let her hands sink down weakly. They brushed over the sleeves of his shirt. She parted her lips. Unsure whether she wanted to say something now, she slowly sucked in a breath. His eyes were drawn to her lips inevitably. He moved closer, but stopped at a short distance from her.

She felt something touch her knee and found his hand resting on top of it. Her breathing accelerated. She placed her own hand on top of his, her fingers caressing his, before they intertwined and he gave them a soft squeeze.

Her voice was breathy and seemed oddly loud inside the car when she spoke next. "That's why. Because we're like magnets," at those words she saw the laughter lines around his eyes appear as his mouth settled into a smile. It made her want to kiss him, but she wouldn't. She wasn't supposed to. And God knew what would happen if she did. She was big on the whole self-restraint thing, but she wasn't a saint. So better not even start before things went from bad to worse.

"I really want te kiss ya right now," he said softly and his confession made her breath hitch.

"I know...," she said, her voice quivering a little in the middle of that short sentence. "Me too." She could feel his fingers squeeze her knee possessively and that little move made her heart beat faster. "But we shouldn't. It's just..." Her eyes fell on his lips and her struggle for words grew more complicated when he touched her cheek with his hand. "It's just attraction," she managed to finally get out.

His knuckles were a bit rough against her skin. Maybe that was from all the fighting he was doing. Bust those knuckles open often enough and they would get rough. He should think about taping them like Punk did. Almost out of reflex she touched his hands and moved them away from her face to look at them.

The palms of his hands were so big and inevitably she held hers next to his. Like the hands of a child. She wrinkled her nose and he noticed. "What?" he asked with a smile.

"My hands are tiny," she said in an almost accusatory tone of voice as if he was to blame for that.

"They look fine te me," he chuckled and clasped her hands in his. Before she could pull her fingers from his grasp he had brought them to his mouth and kissed them. His lips left a hot imprint on her skin. The slight tickling sensation of his beard against her fingers would haunt her for days to come. She stared at him like struck by lightning and from the neck of her T-shirt upwards a slight blush started spreading on her face. An expression of realization spread on her face as she touched her own cheeks and let out an irritated huff. "Great! Now you made me blush!"

"Sorry," he grinned, despite being completely unapologetic about it. She was cute and not even aware of it. And she would kill him dead if he ever said that out loud.

Even though she tried to be pretend like she was angry with him, her eyes were still on his face. The spell of attraction between them was yet to be broken and with an air of curiosity she scooted a little closer to him, reaching out her fingers to touch the bridge of his nose.

"What happened there?" she inquired, as her fingertips traced over the ghost of an old scar, barely visible anymore, just now and because the lighting was right.

He sighed, but in a good-natured way. Like you would sigh when you suddenly remembered something from long ago, you'd have almost forgotten about. "Guy forgot te pull one of his punches during a film production. Hit me with a metal chain wrapped around his knuckles..."

"Must have stung a little," she smiled at him.

Steve grinned. "A wee bit."

There was a moment of silence. Back to square one. Both of them suddenly noticed how close they were sitting again. There seemed to be an undeniable truth to April's remark from before. They really were like magnets.

"Still adamant about the whole no snoggin' deal?" he asked, just because he wanted to check once more. Maybe her resolve had weakened in the last couple of minutes. He could definitely feel his weakening. If this continued, he couldn't guarantee he'd be able to prevent himself from kissing her. There was being a gentleman and there was being a bloodless zombie and he definitely didn't see himself in the latter category.

She hesitated and it made her all the more likeable in his book. In fact her inner struggle showed on her face. A frown that grew deeper, a look of confusion, and a head shake as if she wanted to rid herself of some haziness. "Adamant is the wrong word. I just think that maybe we shouldn't..."

He flashed her a weak smile and abruptly pulled back. He was conflicted about what to do. His instincts screamed at him to plant a good one on her. Hell, she had even said she wanted to kiss him. But his brain told him it was wrong. What if nothing came of this? He leaned forward and touched his forehead to the steering wheel. "Feck," he swore softly. "Feck!" he said a second time, but this time with more conviction and sat up. "Would ya excuse me for a sec?" he asked politely and looked into a surprised face that nodded slowly. He yanked open the door and slammed it shut, releasing a string of profanities as he kicked a defenseless pebble lying in his way. April couldn't help but chuckle softly inside the car, which made him turn and glare in through the window. Before he could react she lowered the window, leaned across the seat and pressed a peck to his cheek which made the frown on his face immediately vanish.

"What the 'ell was that fer?" he even dropped his 'h' because of the surprise.

She smiled at him smugly. "'Cause you are a gentleman and I like the way you swear so creatively?"

"Don't ya think the whole thing about not bein' able te watch a movie together is a bit... I don't know over the top an' melodramatic, luv?" he asked eventually, feeling rightfully flattered by her praise.

"Perhaps," she conceded.

"Jus' what I thought. Even magnets like us can do harmless things like watch a movie together...," he told her, leaning on the open window with his forearms.

"All right," April agreed. "Now come on back in. I don't bite..." He already had the door halfway open, when she added the next words. "Well, not unless you ask me to nicely." He slammed the door shut again and pointed his index finger while he shot her a dark glare.

"Now, will ya be good, lass? Ya stop that right now or next time I'll get a pick-up," she had to giggle a bit at his pronunciation of the word, _Oh, my! That aggressive 'u' in 'up'_, but he ignored her and went on, "An' ya know what? Yer going te sit in the back with the wind in yer hair an' all, because ya just can't keep that cheeky mouth of yers shut, can ya?"

"Cross my heart, I'll be good now, Steeeeeve," she drawled, getting a little creative with the 'e' in his name.

"All right then, ya little minx. Time te get back te the hotel," he told her and got back into the car.


End file.
